Dustin Hemesath

Your customers don’t care about your retention rates. I spoke to an entrepreneur this week and he said, “This company cut CS by 50% just to see what would happen.” The same person, “90% of the companies I talk to are canceling their CSP.” After a recent merger of two large CSPs, one of their executives posted his resignation on LinkedIn, the TL;DR  was that CS has a lot of promise but executive leadership refuses to give it the budget it needs. CS is approaching a crisis. The root of the problem is retention, and the belief mean that only one group ‘owns’ the number. Why? No matter how much tech or flesh you throw at a retention problem, CS isn’t going to improve it in any meaningful way…alone. If your Marketing team targets customers who won’t get value from your product and they buy it, what happens? If your product is confusing, or buggy, or just sucks, what happens? If your Sales team sells deals with false promises, what happens? If your onboarding process stinks, what happens? If your Accounting team pisses people off, what happens? The answers to the above are obvious. What is not obvious? Which of these problems is afflicting your business right now, as you read this, because each of those issues is in a different system, silo and team. You aren't paying attention. No one owns retention. The obsession with retention has led us to ignore what really matters: what makes customers happy, and what does not. Today, we have the opportunity to automatically discover almost every issue that detracts from customer satisfaction, route it to the right person, and track its resolution. The Marketing VP targets customers who need the product, the Product Team has a customer-led roadmap, the Billing Team realizes that the auto-renewal process does more harm than good, and the CRO learns which sellers are over and under-selling. When was the last time you heard someone say, “We leave no stone unturned in our quest to resolve every customer issue rapidly and intelligently?” I have spoken to several executives who say, “I just wouldn’t know what to do with this type of data.” I make a note to never buy their products. They don’t care about customers. Call me crazy. I want to live in a world where every product or service I buy is awesome. So does everyone else. Focus on being awesome and you won’t need to worry about retention. Let’s try to make it a reality together.

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As a founder, hiring your first sales rep is a pivotal moment. It's the bridge between your initial traction and scalable growth. But it's also fraught with risk. Here's how to nail this critical hire: 1. Look for a builder, not just a closer Your first sales rep needs to be comfortable with ambiguity. They're not just selling - they're building your sales process from the ground up. 2. Prioritize industry knowledge At this stage, deep understanding of your market is more valuable than a rolodex of contacts. They need to speak your customers' language fluently. 3. Assess their ability to wear multiple hats Can they handle everything from prospecting to closing to customer success? In the early days, your sales rep might be your entire go-to-market team. 4. Test their resilience Early-stage sales are tough. Rejection is constant. Look for someone who can stay motivated without a big team around them. 5. Align on metrics Be crystal clear on what success looks like. Is it revenue? New logos? Close rate? Make sure you're on the same page from day one. Remember: This hire can make or break your growth trajectory. Take your time, run a rigorous process, and don't settle. What other traits do you think are crucial for an early sales hire?

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Does your business send out influencer packages? Just last month Vamo helped multiple Utah companies deliver 100s of influencer packages across the Wasatch Front. Shipping heavy boxes is expensive, companies utilize Vamo drivers to send them all out in a few hours for a fraction of the price. Does this sound helpful? Shoot me a message. (We can do this anywhere, not just Utah) #influencers #delivery #utah

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Renewals are the lifeblood of every SaaS company. However, we don’t talk enough about what makes a great AM/CSM who handles renewals. Since there are so many lists on what makes a great AE, I thought I’d take a stab at what makes a great AM/CSM who handles renewals: 1/ They prioritize the renewals that move the needle Renewal rate comes down to simple math. What renewals are going to move the needle for them? Great AMs/CSMs spend their time where they’ll get the most bang for their buck. 2/ They prepare 6 months in advance Average AMs/CSMs prep 3 months in advance. Great ones plan 6 months in advance. This includes asking hard questions well ahead of time during a mid-year QBR, so they know where to spend their time. 3/ They can re-sell the product Stakeholders change. Priorities change. Competitors try to break in. Great AMs/CSMs can sell the product as well as their AEs and know how to position their value props and handle objections. 4/ They know how to negotiate I don’t know any procurement person in the post-ZIRP era who doesn’t try to negotiate their contracts. A great AM/CSM knows how to turn negotiations into win-wins. 5/ They know the difference between procurement and decision-makers Similar to point four, they know how to negotiate and with whom. Negotiating with procurement is much different than negotiating with a key stakeholder. Each party wants something different, and it’s important to recognize what that is. 6/ They know how to rope in their AEs or extended teams Just like the best AEs know how to “quarterback” deals, a great AM/CSM knows how to rally resources to help with renewals. AEs, Execs, SEs, and Professional Services can all be brought in to help show the customer extra love. 7/ They develop a renewal champion We always talk about champions in the presales process, but not enough about champions during renewals. A great AM/CSM knows how to develop champions to help push renewals through. An AM/CSM who knows how to do these things is worth their weight in gold. Keep them happy as long as you can!

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If you decide your sales team needs to help with renewals make sure they are incentivized correctly (I usually see a 70% new bookings goal and a 30% renewal / upsell goal). If you don't incentivize hunting, sales tend to farm too much and your growth will slow.

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We did $10M using this underrated customer acquisition strategy. → The call center upsell. Here’s how it works:👇 A live-agent call center takes an inbound order call for an as-seen-on-TV product (Nutribullet, Shamwow, George Forman Grill, etc.) Once the sale has been made, the agent offers another product the customer might be interested in. Example: “Thank you for your time today Mrs. Smith. I want to tell you about a special promotion from <product/ service name>. You will love this, so let me tell you how it works.” The agent then continues with the offer script. If the customer says "yes", they’ve now been sold 2 products on the same call: 1. The product they called in for. 2. The upsell the agent sold them. The call center is paid a commission for the upsell. Both the call center and the marketer love this model because: → The call center drives up its revenue per agent  → The marketer gets a quality customer at a controlled customer acquisition cost This is one overlooked customer acquisition strategy for B2C businesses. There are others. I’ll continue to share them.  ----------- PS 📌 I build strategies, models, and systems that generate millions of dollars in recurring revenue for businesses. Follow Adam Levinter for more. To go deeper, get the newsletter 👉  https://lnkd.in/e7St_YeT

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Most sales leaders focus on their top performers. But your best reps will crush quota whether you help them or not. Here's the uncomfortable truth about scaling revenue... Your top 10% will succeed despite you. They'll figure out how to sell your product and close deals even if you give them zero support, no collateral, and an undefined ICP. But you can't build a scalable revenue engine on top 10% talent alone. It's just math. Even with a rigorous interview process and strong recruiting brand, our 12-month retention rate at Levelset was around 55%. And that was GOOD. The key to scaling isn't finding more unicorns. It's raising the floor for everyone else. That means writing down exactly what success looks like. Not just hoping good people will "figure it out." I learned this the hard way. For the first 4 years (or so), we closed deals almost in spite of ourselves. No real sales playbook. No defined process. Just talented people working hard. When we finally documented our exact process - from first touch to close - our ramp time plummeted and consistency shot up. The uncomfortable truth? Most founders spend way more time recruiting than preparing to train and support their hires. Your playbook doesn't need to be fancy. Start with one document: "How to Run a Demo." Make it painfully detailed. Your top reps will hate it. Your new reps will love you for it.

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SaaS companies where you at?! I've got a friend who is at KILLER at product, he's looking for a product leadership role at a growth stage, mission-oriented SaaS company Highlights: --Seasoned Product Leader that has grown organizations' ARR from zero to $5M and from $40M to $80M twice. --Over ten years of digital health experience across the healthcare ecosystem (payers, providers, patients, and pharma) --Experience in other vertical SaaS organizations, including EdTech, Logistics, and FinTech --Typically joins companies that are at an inflection point. They want to tighten product-market fit, scale, expand into adjacent markets, or turn things around. --Experience as a CTO and a P&L leader. --Looking for a product leader role at a series A or later mission-oriented SaaS company. Comment below or DM me if you've got an opening or know someone who does!

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SaaS Companies are losing HUNDREDS of deals from their crappy discovery and qualification process In the last month, I’ve had 3 discovery calls with 3 large software companies, and all 3 went the same way… Sign-up required a discovery call before the demo, which was just an SDR rattling off a checklist of qualifying questions (classic) All 3 asked: ▶️ What is your company website? ▶️ What are you going to use this for? ▶️ How many users do you need? All 3 said: ▶️ We have a minimum user requirement, which you don’t meet ▶️ I’ll send you a video demo  ▶️ Reach back out when you meet our minimum All 3 failed to: ▶️ Follow-up with pricing details (or send ANY follow-up whatsoever) ▶️ Ask about my growth plans in Q4 and 2025  ▶️ Set up any sort of next steps Some really simple questions could have improved their disco to qualify us better: 1️⃣ What is/ isn’t working about your current process? 2️⃣ What’s the biggest challenge you are looking to solve? 3️⃣ What size is your team today? 4️⃣ What do your growth plans look like? None of these questions were asked. I can’t blame reps for following a strict qualification and discovery process—that’s what they’ve been trained to do But this rigidity can lead to a ton of missed opportunities. It’s not always about a checklist. SDR leaders should listen to some recent disco’s that didn’t make it to an opportunity. Setting a next step might not do anything for your quota this month, but could help get you there next month. Since no one asked about our growth plans, no one discovered that we have an AE joining next month, and would qualify us for their seat requirements… High-quality discovery is impossible if you’re focused on a shortsighted checklist. Sometimes it’s good to go off script. 🦜

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A few thoughts on minimums: Some companies out there are charging $10,000 per month minimum as a way to separate enterprise from SMB. It’s a strategy but not one I subscribe to. We want to find companies when they are growing, so throwing price friction in our sales pipeline doesn’t make a lot of sense. If payment processing would cost a client $2K without minimums, but instead we charge them $10K, that’s $8K a month they can’t spend on growth. Wouldn’t we rather have them organically reach $10K a month based on real payments volume faster? Those of you in this industry for a while might say “well what about the compliance costs? Onboarding and ongoing monitoring.” It’s a great question and still a working experiment for us. Today, we try to get companies to commit to a $500 per month minimum. Less for the revenue or cost offset and more of a qualifier. If you're not serious enough to pay $500, I don't know that you're serious enough to integrate in a safe and secure way. For the costs not covered by that, I view it as a part of a customer acquisition cost to grow processing volume. There may be a day when we go double-check and find some of these customers weren't profitable. But I also don't think we're at a stage where we're optimizing the onboarding costs of risk and compliance. We’d rather have more water running through the pipes.

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I partnered with Kyle Poyar this week to uncover 10 PLG plays that can enhance your customer engagement, streamline processes, and drive revenue growth. Even if your company doesn't identify as Product-Led Growth (PLG), these are strategies from PLG that ANY company should be incorporating. Full post in today's GTM Newsletter by GTMnow, I’ll pop the link in the comments. The TL;DR: 1. Interactive demo on the website 2. Replace hard feature gates and paywalls with soft gates 3. Incorporate a usage-based component to pricing 4. Leverage product data to drive customer outcomes 5. Offer trials for new features 6. Correlate product usage with revenue growth 7. Automate resource-intensive processes with AI 8. Implement smart email nurture cadences 9. Build and leverage power user communities 10. Offer starter packages or proof of concepts ✍️

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Another "outbound is broken" movement brewing from sales technology companies. This time it's around parallel dialing. In case you haven't noticed, this is what happens when technology companies realize their customers aren't actually producing any outcomes with their technology. So they pivot to a new technology so they can sell a new vision. Outbound is alive and well. But no one understands it or how to make it work. You need a phone and a list of numbers. And you can find new business opportunities. You need a small team of reps. You need time. You need someone who understands how to read data. You need someone who understands how to build and tweak messaging. It's likely you don't have any of the correct people in your org right now. And it's likely you're using data incorrectly. And it's likely you're using technology incorrectly. And it's likely 80% of your sales activities are 100% waste. Unfortunately, nobody is telling you this because they're selling you shiny objects. The truth is, outbound is simple and very useful. But it looks nothing like what anyone who is talking about it is telling you. It's a weird world, but it's the one we've got. Point is, technology isn't your problem. You don't need a different one. You just need people who know what they're doing. And they seem to be in short supply right now.

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Biggest crock of bullsh*t sales advice being hawked today: Asking your buyer, with a fake concerned tone: "How is this going to impact you personally??" "Omg... sorry to hear that... what are the consequences of doing nothing here??" News flash: If you sell to executives? Their skin is crawling when you ask questions like that. CRAWLING. It's a thinly veiled attempt at manipulation. If a rep asked those questions to me? On a good day, I'd say "Come on dude. try again." On a bad day, I'd roll my eyes and show them the door. Here's what I DO agree with: Finding the negative impact. Finding the negative consequences. Building the urgency of the problem. THAT I agree with. But the above questions? They are 'right' in theory. But wrong in execution. Here's what to do instead: Be upfront with your buyer. Share the REASON you're asking: "Lisa, mind if I ask you a somewhat salesy question, but I have a good reason for asking it? "If we get close to doing business together, I'm sure your CFO or finance department will want to see a strong business case. "What do you think that looks like here? What are the financial ramifications this challenge is having on the business?" I've asked that 1000 times. Never gotten a negative reaction. What's the difference between THAT question, and the ones that make your buyer's skin crawl? The first ones, you're faking concern. You're trying to slip your intentions under the radar. Your buyers know it. They no longer trust you. But that second question? Your intentions are TRANSPARENT. Your intentions SERVE THE BUYER. So it's received well. Hell. You can even ask those first questions, as long as you justify it: "Now that we've gotten to know each other, can I ask you a question you can kick me in the teeth on if you don't like it? "I'm curious how this issue impacts you personally. We've explored the business side in detail. But you seem like you have a lot of energy behind this. I'm curious why that is." Same question. But cut the bullsh*t fake concern. Your buyers see through that a mile away. P.S. Here's a free list of 39 sales questions that *don't suck* like the above questions: https://go.pclub.io/list

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I met a guy who optimized $4B in ecom rev. His 7 biggest myths about websites: (and exactly how to fix them) 1. “1-star reviews are the worst thing that could happen to my site.” This one blew my mind... Dylan Ander analyzed over 50,000 reviews & testimonial sections of websites. He found that users who click on 1-star reviews drive ~40% MORE REVENUE than users who click on 4 and 5-star reviews. ✅Takeaway: Leave negative reviews on your website & monitor them. It gives users a “deeper FAQ” about your product. 2. “I have a bad conversion rate.” Hot take: Stop looking at conversion rate. Dylan handled $4B in revenue for clients. And NEVER reported on conversion rate. Why? Because conversion rate... • Ignores other important metrics • Doesn’t adjust for traffic volume • Is based entirely on external factors So what SHOULD you track instead? Revenue Per Session, aka total sessions divided by total revenue. ✅Takeaway: RPS is the metric you actually care about when you think you care about CVR. 3. “AI isn’t good at CRO stuff.” Dylan agrees. Except in ONE use case you probably haven’t tried: ChatGPT can analyze your reviews and tell you secrets about your business… • Step 1: Export reviews as a PDF • Step 2: Upload with a prompt asking what you want to know about your customers • Step 3: Ask questions as if ChatGPT is your customer. ✅Takeaway: Reviews + ChatGPT = free, fast customer research. 4. “FAQs don’t really matter.” Dylan analyzed 50M sessions that had FAQs in them. On average, the FAQs had a 12% HIGHER revenue per click than other elements on the website. ✅Takeaway: quick rules for FAQs... • No question is <4 words • Max of 6-8 questions • Dedicated FAQ page in the footer adds trust 5. “Best sellers should be front & center.” Naturally, you want to feature best sellers. But Dylan discovered that the most frequently purchased items tend to have a lower RPS. ✅Takeaway: Turns out, placing a best seller AFTER a different product tends to yield more revenue. 6. “Landing pages are the best place to send traffic.” Based on data from 100M sessions.. Sending traffic to your homepage results in the highest AOV & CVR. ✅Takeaway: Try running ads to your homepage instead of a landing page. 7. "Heatmaps aren't useful for increasing $." Dylan & his team have used their learnings to create a heatmap that prioritizes REVENUE, not clicks. The data from all the insights in this thread came from there → https://lnkd.in/ebMCkEcv We invested pre-seed Contrarian Thinking Capital and they recently raised another $4M. If you want to try increasing revenue for your site, heatmap is the place to start: https://lnkd.in/e4y-kR2a

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Hiring sales reps is tough Mediocre sellers can sound great Different people fit at different stages of a business Founders want a young, hungry seller who will work for the opportunity and bust their tail For $35k + unlimited commission Expectations are misaligned Combine these factors together and you get mis-hires and reps get fired Hiring the right reps is a process and strategy, not a desire

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If your exit interviews *aren’t* being conducted by a 3rd party… You’re likely getting BAD FEEDBACK. There are two reasons why letting CSMs conduct customer exit interviews is a bad idea: ❌ Not all CSMs will ask the hard questions (to avoid looking bad) ❌ Customers will hold back from giving raw feedback (to avoid hurting the CSM) If your goal with these interviews is to gather valuable feedback to improve your product, attract the right customers, and prevent future churn... this will likely lead you even further away from the truth. Here are some better options for getting better departure feedback: ✅ Let someone else in the company conduct the interview. This could be someone from marketing, engineering, finance, etc. What’s important is that they *don’t* have a stake in that particular customer leaving from a relationship standpoint. ✅ Let an outside firm conduct the exit interviews manually. Probably your best bet if you have a high-ticket offer, wide margins, and low churn volume. ✅ Automate the exit interviews with a cancellation flow. Ideal for companies with a high volume of subscriptions at low-to-moderate price points (south of $200/mo).

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I was talking with a founder last week who was excited because his price is 90% less than a competitor’s price. Price is a terrible differentiator for B2B SaaS products. Walmart and Costco can differentiate on price because they have economies of scale that matter in retail. But software is a different business. In B2B software, the value you deliver to the business will determine your price point. But how do you know what to charge? When you are under $1m in ARR, it’s tough to really know how much people are willing to pay for your product. Most founders start their prices too low. Tim Ferriss interviewed Marc Andreessen and asked him, "If you had the chance to put up a billboard anywhere, what would you write on it?" Marc replied, "Raise prices!" I think this is good advice, but leaves more questions than answers. So I've put together my principles about pricing, here they are: 1. Your product should deliver at least 10x value compared the price that you are charging. 2. You have to ask for the money. People aren’t going to just offer you their hard-earned cash. You have to actually say “would you like to buy our product today”. 3. Never negotiate against yourself. Say your price, then let the customer tell you if it’s too expensive. 4. Price is only a factor in absence of value. Always communicate the price of your product in terms of the value that you deliver to the customer. 5. Sell to your customers the way that they want to buy. If they are used to paying monthly, then charge monthly. If they are used to paying based on the number of units consumed, then charge by the number of units consumed. 6. If you can, avoid pricing by seat or by company revenue. It creates bad incentives for the customer to withhold information in the relationship. Find a value metric that scales as the customer gets more value from the product. 7. Never communicate price through email or text until you have already talked through the price with the customer. Pick up the phone. 8. If you are using a sales team to sell your product, you want an annual contract value of at least $10k. This gives enough room to afford the customer acquisition cost. 9. Product-Led-Growth is not going to get you the first $1m in sales. Before $1m in ARR, the best way to get new customers is to talk to them on the phone. 10. Make a one-page agreement and get the customer to sign it. Outline the commercial terms of your relationship and link to the terms of use. You will be happy to have something to reference when it’s time to renew their subscription. 11. Your future economics will wash out your current economics. You will change pricing 100 times over the course of your business, so don’t over-analyze your pricing. Just get something in the customer’s hands that makes sense. You can always change the pricing later during the renewal or when new customers sign up. What are some of your favorite principles for pricing?

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Customer support reps are gathering on @Reddit to vent. I just discovered the existence of groups like: r/callcentres (30k members) r/TalesFromCallCenters (239k members) r/CustomerServiceKarma (4.7k members) Where CS reps open up about: - Processes - Customers - Management Or simply about the daily grind and the challenges they face at work. For me, it’s shocking for 2 reasons: 1. It’s heartbreaking to read what some of these unsung heroes are going through. 2. It’s the biggest waste of talent and opportunity for companies. CS reps have the power to create lasting loyalty and retention. They’re often one of a company’s greatest assets. (as studies show) Most of the time, all they need is the right support: The right tools, the right processes... Or simply to feel understood by their managers. In 2025, I’m making it my mission to change this, to amplify their voices! It’s time companies start realizing the real power of Customer Support. - Thibaut 🦊

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