Jacques de Haes

🤯 “Ramping up SDRs, AEs and CS people  takes us no less than 6 months.” 💣 🙈 This is what I heard on a recent demo from  a CRO of a rapidly scaling tech business. 📈 Time to efficiency is a struggle Heads of Sales Enablement and Customer Success are going through across their commercially-driven teams… 📖 At the moment, they expect internal  sales and CS decks, call recordings,  business pitches, etc. should do the job. 🙄 But it doesn’t! 🗓️ They're wasting too much time for people to start performing, closing deals, effectively onboarding customers, reducing churn & upselling… ❌ Sometimes, they still don’t perform... And then guess what? Off leaders go through to recruiting mode again starting from ground 0. 🎯 Hence the need for action-based learning.  Not just passively reading through PDFs  and listening to call recordings. 👨‍💻 Below are some use cases we see our customers here at UJJI AI ✨ leveraging our tech for: 🔸 Business-specific lead gen and outbound 🔸 Pitching quick and easy over the phone 🔸 Delivering demos and answering queries 🔸 Effectively onboarding new customers 🔸 Efficiently implementing product features 🔸 Practising great customer support 🔸 Guiding customers to upselling 🚀 Ultimately, growing tech businesses comes down to predictable new business development, high customer retention and low churn. 💬 So, DM me if you want to see examples  of AI-powered. easy to build and consume knowledge equipping experiences. 👇 Anything to add to this, Sales and CS leaders? Gautam Rishi Rohan Dickinson George Heron Russell Mitchell Callum Hartley Jon Teale James Dixon Seán Colfer Caroline L. Guy Rubin Jake Carter David Muscat Arun Raveendran Steve Eveleigh Ayo Kukoyi,

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Here's the stark facts in sales today. - 31% of reps are making quota - Nearly half (44%) of deals slip - Sales cycles are double digits longer, win rates are double digits down - Inbound leads are down - Salesforce recognised the need to increase pipeline coverage to by 50% (from x2 to x3) Most of those we speak to recognise all these challenges. But they are stuck. "Do more with less" is the message. They have cut teams and fought for those remaining. Their organisations are stuck with blind hope and knives sharpening. The only solution they know is to fire and replace. Because the real problems aren't acknowledged. The market has changed and it's harder. But are teams are not more skilled. The same teams, that could achieve in the old world are failing in this one. And the last message anyone wants, is we need to spend some money to solve that. "That's your job isn't it?" cries the leadership to time-starved managers and leaders. Anyone want to guess what's going to happen to sales manager average tenure (already at an all-time low of 18 months)????

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Most SDRs want to be AE's as quickly as possible. Nothing wrong with being ambitious. The problem is there are very few roles about and for those roles that do exist there's often good AEs with experience looking too. Rather than seeing this as a hard luck story see it as an opportunity. According to The Bridge Group for SDRs with less than 11 months of experience, the failure rate is a massive 55%! Instead of trying to get promoted ASAP. Focus on becoming a master of your craft. I personally was an SDR for over 2 years and made me a way better AE when I finally made the leap. I watched many who were promoted way before me struggle. In sales, sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.

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SDRs can be taught to be AEs SDRs can be taught to be CSMs [shoutout to Eric Partaker for the post inspo] Also... SDRs can be taught to be Managers SDRs can be taught to be Marketeers SDRs can be taught to do almost any role Fact: It's better to hire someone who is 60% ready with the right behaviours. Than 100% ready with the wrong ones. SDRs deserve a chance. Do you agree? PS. Share ♻️ with others in your network. And follow Chris Ritson for more sales content like this.

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VPs Sales, STOP managing your SDRs | Here's why... 👀 Here's the sh*t you should be doing: 💵 Focus on supporting your AE team/s close deals 🧬 Prioritise strategic collaboration with other functions 📊 Review data to set strategic direction 👔 Spend time hiring A-Grade Leaders & AEs 🤝 Give attention to customers to optimise renewals & upsells ⚙️ Implementing & driving adoption of core sales processes Here's the sh*t you either should NOT be doing or worse... MISSING: 🗣️ Coaching the most inexperienced/junior reps in the org 🔁 Hiring & promoting in an ever-changing team dynamic 👥 Providing daily support for people still finding their way as an adult 🧑‍🏫 Teaching the BASICS of how cold-call, email, qualify, etc. 🔬 Study current prospecting trends & ideas 💪 Keeping impatient and hungry young professionals motivated Be honest with yourself... 🧠 Think about where you're burning your calories 🧠 Think about whether you have the time to manage this stakeholder group 🧠 Think about whether your prospecting knowledge is as sharp as it should be 🧠 Think about whether your SDR team is delivering the results you want 🧠 Think about where you are going to have the biggest business impact ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ 👋 Hi I'm Andy, Founder of RevRocket. I specialise in building, optimising and growing your SDR function so you don't have to. Considering getting support for your PipeGen Team? Shoot me a DM ✉️

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10 things SDRs should get for Christmas... [this list is 100% NOT exhaustive...] 1. More commission on multi-stakeholder meetings 2. More recognition from senior leaders and founders 3. More support from their AEs on understanding business pains and ''speaking'' prospects language 4. More training on problems that their ICP prospects face in their day to day 5. More SDR managers who say ''well done'' and ''thanks for the hard work'' everyday 6. More accurate phone numbers so they can more conversations [phone still wins] 7. Someone to remove automation from their day to day for just ONE WEEK to prove they can win without it 8. HR to provide training on soft skills of having a sales job with lots of rejection 9. The CRO to pick up the phone once in a while and say ''Mrs SDR - you're hard work is so appreciated'' 10. Fair pay for everyone and an attainable OTE. What would you add? ♻️ Repost, so Santa [CROs and Founders] see my Christmas list... PS. Thanks, my SDR friends! 🎅

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SWAT teams rather than armies. Hearing this phrase from lots of sales teams recently. And there is lots of logic - to a smaller highly trained (and coached ;-) elite team rather than a larger team, whether SDR’s or quota carriers. Here’s the drivers… - Sales Efficiency, the obvious one. Growth at all costs is gone, presumably forever. Cost of acquisition and sustainable growth are now key. - Raise The Bar, a smaller elite and well coached (couldn’t resist this time) team removes the weakest performers, the time and resources spent trying to pull them up and raises the bar for everyone on the team. - Bottom Up Economics, teams resourced based on on actual pipeline not multiplying quotas by team size. Quota carriers, even if good prospectors, can’t and arguably shouldn’t create all their own pipeline. If you don’t have the pipeline from SDR’s and inbounds, the team is bloated. - Elite is easier , With a smaller well chosen/recruited team, it’s more realistic with time and resource to help make them elite. And with an elite team, everything is easier. - Cheaper, it’s not just sales efficiency. It’s cost and budgets. They are smaller and what is possible or affordable has changed. What are you doing to create your SWAT teams?

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75% of reps are missing quota, and 34% of deals slipped. Insights I shared at SaaSOpen → Sept 5-6, NYC to reveal key trends shaping the B2B sales landscape. Access the H1 Update to the 2024 B2B Sales Benchmarks for detailed analysis: https://lnkd.in/eVrPdUYU Some more key takeaways: - Top performers outshine peers by a 10.2x margin. - Pipeline creation is up by 25%, but only 18% matches Ideal Customer Profile. - Sales teams downsized by 9% in Q1 but grew by 18% in Q2. - Quota targets surged by 37% compared to 2023. We analysed $57 billion in revenue. 4.7 million+ opportunities. 1.1 million+ hours of conversations so you can be confident of the results. While 75% of reps missed quota last quarter, 25% exceeded targets. Our H1 Update delves into what sets 'A players' apart to elevate 'B and C' players. #2024b2bsales #pavillion #saas

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Scaling an outbound team from 14 reps to 150 reps. My 12 lessons from Checkr's journey. Carrie Bosworth, SVP of Sales at Checkr, shared how they did it on the Science of Scaling podcast. Here are my 12 key takeaways from the episode: 1) Scaling with Inbound Leads Only • Rarely do companies hit massive revenue through inbound alone. • When Carrie joined Checkr, they were scaling fast but knew inbound would dry up. • They diversified by adding outbound selling to maintain growth. 2) Transition Challenges • Moving from inbound to outbound is hard. • Different profiles and skill sets are needed. • How you hire, create books, and approach the market changes. 3) Preparation Time • It took Checkr 6-9 months to get ready for outbound. 4) Executive Involvement • Executives should also engage in outbound. • Reps write notes for execs, who adjust them to sound authentic. • Execs don't run long sequences but help break into top accounts. 5) Deep Research for Enterprise AEs • AEs with public company accounts spend 2 months on research. • They buy the prospect's product, use the app, and create detailed reports. • This deep dive helps them secure meetings and close deals faster. 6) Inbound to Outbound Transition • Initial reps were order takers with no BDR experience. • Given a chance to switch, many opted out or moved to other teams. 7) Hiring and Expectations • AEs with outbound experience only. • Enterprise AEs need more experience. • BDRs require 1 year of previous BDR experience from top companies. • SDRs are often college athletes for their motivation and work ethic. 8) Territory Management • Started with 14 reps using Round Robin. • Grew to 150 reps with balanced territories based on company size and location. 9) ICP Definition • Focus on LTV, retention, and CAC. • Targeting accounts with high LTV and reasonable CAC. 10) Territory Alignment Post-Covid • Shifted focus from geography to best ICP. • Created extra territories to accommodate growth. 11) Outbound Playbook • Inbound is reactionary; outbound requires operational rigor. • Dedicated time for outbound activities is crucial. 12) Accountability Measures • Monthly scorecards with more weight on outbound activities. • Comp plans, daily dashboards, and pipeline meetings ensure focus. Outbound sales require strategy, preparation, and the right team. --- P.S. What's the biggest challenge when transitioning from inbound to outbound?

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Tech SDRs - you have a bloody tough gig in comparison to commercial hires in other industries... Here's why... 🏦 Investment Banks - no entry-level hire is expected to create new relationships. 🏗️ Real Estate - Directors/Partners win the lion's share of new projects with no new business expectation placed on anyone with less than 2 years experience. 💸 Asset Managers - your portfolio is handed to you post-probation and you're allowed the time/opportunity to build your reputation and win business. 👨‍⚖️ Law - Partners win most of the business and hand clients to the wider team. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Recruitment - Junior hires ramp by speaking with candidates until they prove themselves competent to manage their first client which would have been won by a senior colleague. But then... 🤖 TECH - SDRS ARE EXPECTED TO BOOK MEETINGS FROM MONTH 2! You learn to do the hard bit first in tech. Next time you look at your pals in other fields - remind yourself of the above. #SDR #BDR #TechSales #Sales #Recruitment

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SDRs who deserve to be AEs... ✅ Help coach other SDRs ❌ Are in it for themselves ✅ Hit quota every month ❌ Sometimes smash it ✅ Build amazing internal relationships ❌ Moan about their AE and Manager ✅ Prioritise the team winning ❌ Think they're an individual contributor ✅ Train every single day ❌ Believe they know it all ✅ Compete against themselves ❌ Compete against others in the team ✅ Are genuinely happy when others win ❌ Get bitter when others are successful 99% of success is in WHO you are. And HOW you do things. Embrace being different. Embrace being better. What am I missing? ---- PS. My SDR to AE bootcamp closes tomorrow. 5 seats left; https://lnkd.in/ejFQERRF

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Half the outbound prospecting tips I see on LI are RevOps tips in disguise. Things salespeople had to do to hit quota that RevOps should have, but didn't, do for them. Here are just two examples. 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 There's no bigger waste of time than calling suboptimal prospects outside of your ICP and Personas. The first step here is a data science exercise. You take your ICP and Personas definition and run it against all available internal and external data. Then you map out the capacity of each rep to determine how many accounts they can handle. How long does it take to complete each step in the sales process? How many accounts can they do that with before they run out of time and skip steps? Then you take that number of accounts and use your data to identify the absolute best accounts for each rep. Does any of this sound like a "sales activity?" Is this really what you hired expensive salespeople to do? To fumble through something RevOps could do 10X better and 10X faster? 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 What salespeople should be doing is research on that carefully curated list of accounts and contacts. RevOps can give them a BIG headstart by aggregating data into a single place so that they can quickly see things like: - Contact Info - Website URL - LinkedIn URL - Firmographic Metrics - Technographic Metrics - Marketing Engagement - External Intent Signals As an AE, I spent 30% - 70% of my time on all this stuff. As AE #1 in a small startup this took up most of my time, as I had to start from zero. But even at Salesforce, working inside their well-oiled machine, I still had to do a lot of this on my own. Most companies will give reps thousands of accounts when they can only handle a couple hundred or so and expect them to do the data science instead of spending their time actually selling. Don't waste money on AEs. Set them up to use their time more effectively. If you want to read more, we wrote up an article on this a while back in 📰 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 https://bit.ly/43lFOxQ ✌️

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SDRs, if you're struggling to access Snr decision-makers in your outreach, try this... 1. Create a low-lift ask Too many SDRs ask for time with CXOs, especially when outbounding. Instead ask something like "𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘐 𝘣𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩?" 2. Exec outreach Matching titles with your target prospect is a great way of sourcing meetings. Ghost write an email for your CRO, CXO and have them send it with you in CC. 3. Speak to SENIOR value Avoid getting into the bells and whistles of your solution or service. Speak to the bigger picture of ROI, revenue growth, bottom-line savings. --------- For more help, consider RevRocket's coaching options Send me a DM to learn more.

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SDRs need to learn automation Being an SDR without tools such as Korppi, Clay , Dripify Lead Conversations, you're gonna get outpaced, and out prospected. 🫡 💥 Korppi can now automate email sequences with personalisation, with infinite email warming and high deliverability. 💥 Clay can find the perfect prospects with the correct understanding of API, and data management. 💥 Dripify can build your Linkedin and get you conversations. SDRs isn't anymore just about sales. It's data analysis.

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The #1 way to motivate SDRs... (And it costs nothing) Prove you g͟e͟n͟u͟i͟n͟e͟l͟y͟ care about them. It’s pretty damn easy: - Prioritise your 1:1s - Sunshine great work - Say ''thanks'' every week - Give them honest feedback, nicely - Appreciate their effort even if they failed - Message MORE when they are struggling Most SDRs just want to 'feel' like you care. It's not difficult. Do you agree? ♻️ Share this to show sales leaders the way. ---- 📌 The SDR Leader Bootcamp closes Friday for enrollment.

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A great Discovery call does 3 things: 1️⃣ It teaches The simplest way to assess the effectiveness of your Discovery calls is to ask who learned more about the prospect's business.  Far too often, the sales rep does most or all of the learning. A strong Discovery changes how the prospect thinks about the problem(s) you address, and to do that effectively, they need to learn new things about their business and situation. 2️⃣ It creates a clear & impactful dissonance between the present and the prospect’s desired future The real power of a strong Discovery call is its ability to build the basis for change. Doing that requires creating structural tension in the prospect’s mind. While this may surprise some, most buyers haven’t paused to think meaningfully about the outcomes they desire. I’ve conducted many powerful Discovery calls that simply defined success and clarified the difference between that vision and their current situation. 3️⃣ It lays out a clear path for what the rest of the sales process will look like An effective Discovery always outlines a specific next step and ensures commitment from all involved parties. You earn extra points for clarifying the overall process and identifying key milestones. Confusion is the #1 cause of decision reluctance, which kills deals. Use your Discovery to get things off to a robust start. What did I miss? What are your keys to a successful Discovery?

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Sequence is absolutely *crushing* its GTM content engine. Worth checking out their most recent report "Sequence Principles" detailing tactical revenue lessons from 100+ B2B companies. Some highlights: 1. Clear ICP messaging (B2B sales leadership) 2. Easy scrolling/skimming ability across sections 3. Real-time founder testimonials (like Sasha Orloff) 4. Highly tactical advice (i.e. packaging, bundling, metrics) 5. Simple design without overwhelming folks w/ dense content Highly recommend taking a look - big s/o to the Sequence team ⚡

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Calling all B2B sales professionals. With our friends at Aircall, we need your help with our State of Sales Coaching survey 2024. 3-5 minutes of your time could win you amazing prizes - the latest AirPods, Sonos speaker, Nespresso machine, and of course MySalesCoach scholarships. Sales coaching is widely considered the most critical function of a frontline sales leader. Previous studies demonstrate that it significantly boosts win rates and quota attainment. However, many sales organisations find it challenging to establish and execute an effective sales coaching culture and strategy. Our survey seeks to identify the key trends, best practices, and impacts of sales coaching in 2024. You'll be first to get the study published in October packed with insight, data and trends. Leaders and Individual Contributors should complete the survey - with scholarship places up for grabs for each. Your voice really matters, complete today for a chance of these amazing prizes and to be first with the report. Link here to complete - https://lnkd.in/eKRcTPXV

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50 Million reasons why AI SDRs are about to f**** everything up 👇 SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM If you’ve never done the SDR job, your assumption is that the issue is scaling conversations. This is true, somewhat. The reason for the issue however, is not what people think. Investors and the founders assume that people struggle to talk to one another and that AI will outperform them. They also assume that data quality, both in terms of accurate contact information and finding prospects who actually are open to buying is a non issue. Further, they assume that the channels (phone, email and LinkedIn) do not play a major role in SDR success. They are wrong. 1% of the problem is what to say 99% of the problem is getting through LEGALITIES AND DISTRIBUTION It’s completely illegal to AI / Robo call someone in the U.S., which is the biggest market in the world for most companies. Enough said. Further, the channels for contacting a prospect are largely owned by a handful of companies: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo (Email and LinkedIn) and then major telecoms providers. There is 0 incentive for these companies to let your AI SDR function on their platforms. In fact, you will actually land up turning people away from using those platforms by harassing them non stop. CREATING THE DEATH TRAP This then puts us in the vicious cycle that mass email for example got in, which is that abuse of a channel renders the channel ineffective as a means of contacting prospects. Imagine 1000s of companies using AI to reach out to millions of prospects a day on all channels. They will burn the channels and the brand. EXECUTION WILL BE HORRENDOUS Most Marketers or SDR leaders are going to default to the worst way possible of approaching buyers, which is to simply turn the volume of activities right up on the AI spam machines until the campaigns stop performing and then they will move on. These leaders can barely build an effective plan to use the phone, email or LinkedIn to talk to prospects today. They certainly won’t become AI experts any time soon either. BUYERS WILL HATE IT For some reason, we assume closing a deal is the end goal. It’s the beginning. People buy based on trust and spamming people with AI when they haven’t opted in to be spammed is probably the worst way to begin a partnership and says a lot about how you view your clients. $50,000,000 was wasted this week on a solution to the wrong problem. There will be a lot of positive PR from people who don’t use the tool. But you will be hard pressed to find a lot of positive feedback from customers. Come back to this post in 2026 to see if I called it. 🤖

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