Payne (Pei En) Hwang

Salary Range is $45,000 - $50,000 USD (Fully Remote, Global 🌎) - Doesn't matter where you are in the world. 4 weeks PTO Laptop to get you started $1500 CAD learning budget $1000 CAD in travel allowance A Customer Success Rep that: - understands that success starts at support interactions with users - is the bridge between engineering and users on detailed bug/issue reporting, feature requests, etc. - knows how to effectively deliver trainings with passive campaigns to onboard user and improve product adoption - has the acumen to deal with admins for successful renewals and upsells - is up for the challenge to work in a startup and build the customer success function Someone with technical support experience and has managed 50+ accounts with at least $1 Million in Book of Business. There is no training, onboarding or a hard playbook to follow - we would build it together. If you think you've got what it takes, take a crack at applying below. Or if you think you know someone, tag them in the comments. https://lnkd.in/dZw3gbTs P.S - if you want to stand out, shoot me a loom video on LinkedIn :) #remote #csm #job

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People that care about UX and productivity for sales people: SDR Managers (god bless you wonderful folks). I do find that most direct managers in Sales aren't polling their employees--especially AE's to find out what's not working, what they are putting up with and not complaining about. There are tons of tools that sales folks are buying on their own dime like Scratchpad, Superhuman, etc. We all care about "giving developers the right tools to stay in flow".. but your revenue team? Sure, leaders need our forecasting tools and enablement systems (maybe)--but ask your team "what sucks about this CRM layout, how does thing work on your mobile device, what things are getting in your way, how much time do you spend clicking around poorly designed tooling interfaces---and what would move the needle for you". As an AE-centric leader, i'm working to put things in place that sure--make folks more productive--but that they don't hate using. What say you? whats sucks in your world? what tools do you buy on your own to deal with your day? or even how should the world work for a day-to-day SDR/AE/Account Manager, etc

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Nick Mehta says we might consider moving #CustomerSuccess execs under sales and the CRO to consolidate the customer experience. Maybe there is another group to move? What if we moved #Product execs under the CRO as well? #CS #CRO #sales #Product

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How do you define an MQL? And how does this compare to what other companies do? 🤔 Someone asked this question in the ROC Slack group recently, here's how the RevOps Co-op responded 👇 1️⃣ 2 out of 4 BANT criteria met Consensus here was BANT is the responsibility of the sales team, not the marketing team, so shouldn't be used. 2️⃣ Exceeds lead score threshold based on demographic and behavior data This was a popular choice. Lots of folks said an MQL should be a hand-raiser that meets some sort of grade / score threshold. 3️⃣ Based on account and title fit with ICP This can be the basis of a lead score or grade mentioned in number 2 above. ☝️ 4️⃣ Based on Minimum Viable Customer Profile (MVCP) This is basically a twist on number 2 and 3 above, but I thought it was intriguing. It's basically a more broad version of your ICP using secondary criteria. For example, if your ICP is a Fortune 500 account, your MVCP may be any company with > $50M revenue. Or if your ICP is HQ in the US, your MVCP could be HQ in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. What do you think - anything missing here for different ways to define an MQL? PS - thanks to Malorie Packard, Colby Ricker, Colin Illar, Jeff Ignacio, Jacqueline Freedman 🦋, Rex Biberston, and others for participating in this 🧵 #revenueoperations #revops #marketingops #marketingoperations #mops #GTMOps #alltheops #MQL

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Ok, I'm getting on the SDR discussion train, but not in the same vein as a lot of the conversation going around over the last few days. 🌶 Hot take: SDRs shouldn't be an entry-level job. 🌶 If you take what many GTM leaders out there are saying about what SDRs should be doing, it's not a skill set for kids fresh out of school in their first professional job. Sorry, y'all. It's just not. The role of an SDR, when executed to match 2024 buying environments, takes professionalism, finesse, drive, sales technology navigate, market awareness, and many other skills that take years to develop and hone. And if you're selling enterprise deals to the C-suite, I promise not a one of them enjoys being cold-called by a 23-year-old who knows little to nothing about their business or the industry. SDRs are a niche form of sellers and should be a secondary track developed in a sales org alongside AEs. They shouldn't be 'beneath' AEs and they also should be compensated in a much more evolved structure than the BS call volume or meetings booked metrics. At a bare minimum, they should be comped on pipeline generation, but the comp side could be a whole separate post. "But Fiiioooonnna, how will our company get entry-level folks?" You know where everyone should start in a SaaS company? Customer support. Learn the product, learn the customers, learn the culture, work hard and fail fast with a safety net more experienced colleagues. Imagine how good an SDR would be if they'd spent 6-12 months supporting customers? Thoughts?

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What the heck do Account Managers actually do? SDR’s ask me this question at least once a week. Most people think Account Managers: 1. Deal with customer support inquiries 2. Run all the customer trainings 3. Have a lot of admin work 4. Answer questions all day 5. Get easy renewals I will say this. The Account Manager role is very different at each company. However, typically the customer support team handles technical questions. Customer trainings are ran by the customer success team. Renewals are not as easy as they seem all the time. In my opinion, there is a good amount of admin work, but I feel like it’s the same amount I was doing as an AE. What Account Managers actually do: 1. Strategically find upsells/cross sells 2. A lot of relationship development 3. Delegating questions to the right resources 4. Handling renewals Account Managers, what else would you add?

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We got this guide before GTA 6. SDRs: Your questions can make or break your conversations 📞 Maryada Bawa wrote a solid guide for School of SDR on crafting better questions for cold calls. It's a quick read, but packed with actionable tips. Key takeaways: Open-ended is the way to go Read the room (even when you're not in one) Bridge the gap between problems and solutions One tip from this guide helped an SDR land a big fish. Not bad, right? Curious about leveling up your question game? Check it out in the comments #Sales #SDR P.S. It's free. Why not take a look? P.P.S- Follow School of SDR so you are the first one to be notified of these amazing free resources. A big surprise is coming.

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How 1 prompt is making Can save a rep Hours of time: You ever hear sellers say " oh there is too much data, too many tabs, too many things in SalesForce for me to know what going on" Enter the most amazing easy Workato flow I have created. Using Workato I pump about 75 individual fields + a loop of actions like cold call notes, call recording transcripts and more to a simple prompting action... WANT THE SECRET SAUCE..... comment and I can send the prompt

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Just wrapped up an outbound training with 95 Retail AEs & SDRs at Shopify. This group KILLED it. I had a great time working with everyone. Shopify has 20+ openings right now for SDRs, AEs, and leadership right now. Here's why you should consider joining their team: ✅ Shopify is an absolute 🚀 They're growing 25%+ year over year. They're crushing it during a time when many SaaS orgs are struggling. ✅ Their SDR org is top 1% Diana Gates heads up a world-class SDR org. You get all of the tools, support, training, and coaching you need to be world-class. They're using AI better than anywhere I've seen. ✅ Great front-line leaders Jamie Armstrong heads up the retail team. Shout out to all their front-line leaders/coaches: Yannick Cocoyer, Tess Sharma, Nicole D'Argento, Ryan Self, Ranesha Mattu, Hailey Mysko, Samantha Sousa (Paul), Michael Farine, Jonathon Siadat, Edan Dvora, Christina Anastos ✅ World-class enablement Siobhan Sweeney and Brittany S. S. H. 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 Tag someone you know this could be a great opportunity for.

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"Should we outsource SDRs?" No, with rare exceptions. There's a reason why customer churn is high at most of the outsourced SDR shops. Outbound isn't as easy as paying $3-5k / month for a part-time SDR. And then expecting to see high-quality opportunities in 30-60 days. I've NEVER worked with a client that was happy with their SDR agency. - Poor show rates to meetings - Terrible expectation setting with handoff - Low-quality meetings with non-decision makers - Few, if any, closed/won deals But to be fair—it isn't always the SDR agency's fault. Many of their clients expect them to be miracle workers. An outbound-led sales motion is very different from an inbound-led sales motion. If your AEs are used to meeting with inbound leads, they must be taught how to close outbound leads. Prospects will likely not be problem-aware, there isn't a budget in place, and they probably won't have brand awareness. Do not hire an SDR agency if: ⛔️ You've never done outbound before as an org. ⛔️ You sell enterprise ⛔️ You're breaking into new industries ⛔️ You haven't figured out your messaging or value drivers ⛔️ Your AEs aren't self-sourcing and doing their own outbound No outsider will ever understand your customers as well as you do. And it's only a bandaid to build a sales culture that doesn't understand how to excel at outbound. It might make sense to work with an agency if: ✅ You know outbound works, but need help scaling it ✅ You've mastered messaging and value drivers ✅ Your AEs know how to close outbound deals ~~~ Agree or disagree? #sales

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Many executives believe that closing deals at all costs is the best way to grow. I would challenge that mindset. It’s especially important to recognize that success doesn’t end with the sale—your Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and teams working with the customer post-sale are crucial to long-term growth. As a salesperson, you close the deal and move on, but behind every successful sale is a team responsible for managing the entire customer lifecycle. Unfortunately, too many executives focus on implementing CPQ (configure, price, quote) tools and spend significant resources customizing them. In doing so, they often overlook the most critical aspect: retaining the customer they worked so hard to win. Customer churn is a real issue, but it can be minimized by automating the post-sale process and focusing on the customer experience after the initial sale. At SAASTEPS, we equip your CSMs and post-sales teams with even more tools than your sales team—all within a single data model. We provide everything from subscription management and billing to invoicing, renewals lifecycle management, and revenue recognition. We handle the entire revenue management process flawlessly, allowing your teams to focus on what matters most: earning and maintaining customer trust.

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There is NO ATS/CRM that is going to get your best salespeople excited about putting their data into it. It's just a fact. Whether you use Salesforce, Bullhorn, Loxo, Tracker, Crelate, Zoho, some other tool. Your salespeople likely HATE it. Not because they don't see some advantages to using it. But because they find having to do data entry boring and annoying. Know why? Because they're not data entry people. They are customer relationship people. Good sales managers realize something. This is a fine line to walk. You do your best to get your best salespeople to put as much info in the system as possible. But you stop there and stop pushing. Because if you don't. There may come a point where your top salespeople sell less because they don't want to have to put more info in the system. Seems ridiculous? Agreed. Ridiculous that any organization would do something that would make their top salespeople want to sell less... #RaiseTheRoose

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I saw a post from Markus Rentsch highlighting how CSMs are the backbone of every SaaS company. I couldn't agree more to that statement. Being a CSM is a lot like that scene in #friends when Ross trying to get Chandler and Rachel to pivot that couch. It’s a constant struggle to get everyone on the same page for the customer experience! 😂 Sometimes you just need to yell, ‘PIVOT!’ to get marketing, sales, and engineering to see the vision. Any pivot moment to share? Let’s give our CSMs the recognition they deserve—they’re the true couch-pullers of the SaaS world! Reference: https://lnkd.in/gCB86xMR #customersuccess #friends #pivot

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CSMs that reject the "conventional playbook" are 100x more successful. I'm dead serious. Most CSMs don't fail because they are not compliant. They fail because they're too busy "maintaining relationships" and "checking boxes" instead of driving business outcomes. I've seen dozens of compliant CSMs that ended up in PIPs. Let's bust a few myths: 🔴 NPS has ZERO correlation with renewals 🔴 Cookie-cutter QBRs demonstrate no value 🔴 Weekly check-ins drive no outcomes whatsoever 🔴 Health Scores built on intuition don't accurately predict risk These "best practices" are lies. And they are killing your ability to be a great CSM. While you're sending "check-in" emails, Top CSMs are: 1️⃣ Helping customers crystalise their goals 2️⃣ Advising on the key metrics that matter 3️⃣ Building detailed success plans 4️⃣ Forging strategic partnerships 5️⃣ Ensuring accountability 6️⃣ Testing and iterating 7️⃣ Communicating ROI 8️⃣ Multi-threading The game has changed. We're no longer here to make customers "happy". We're no longer here to make health scores "green". We're here to make customers successful. We're here to drive revenue growth. Reject these silly "vanity" metrics. Chase the stuff that is going to have a real impact. 📥 Want to become a great CSM? Consider joining 11.5k+ CS Professionals who read my weekly newsletter on how to build and scale a CS Team [sign up in the comments section]. #csm #customersuccess #customerledgrowth #CX #revops

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Whether you're leading a RevOps team or an entire company, you have 2️⃣ main jobs. Sure, you've got a lot on your plate every single day, but everything you do should be connected to these two things. 👇 1️⃣ Hiring the right people for the right jobs First off, this does not mean your job is to go on a hiring spree. You have certain outcomes you are looking to drive, goals you want to accomplish as you build your team or business. 📈 To accomplish those things, some jobs need to be done. And you need to hire people for those jobs. 👩 Sometimes that means you bring on a new employee, Other times it might be a contractor or consultant, Or maybe there's a job to be done that you give to an existing member of your team or that you take on yourself, but it's your job to hire the right people... ...and you have to hire those people for the right jobs. 🎯 Hire the right person? That's good. 🙌 Put that person in the wrong job? That's bad. 👎 So you need to make sure you not only hire the right people, But that you put them in the right job. 2️⃣ Removing blockers for those people you hired Remember, you hired people to do things, That will drive outcomes. 🚀 So focus on removing all the blockers that these people might face, That are getting in the way of them accomplishing those outcomes. Provide that new piece of technology, 🧑🏻‍💻 Eliminate those manual steps that previously existed, ⚙️ And remove yourself from the process, Get out of their way, Get things out of their way, and let them do the job you hired them to do. And that's it, focus on those two things and make some magic 🪄 Happy Wednesday y'all ✌️ #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #marketingops #marketingoperations #GTMOps #AllTheOps #mops #sops #leadership

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Just wrapped up an outbound training with 64 EMEA AEs & SDRs at Shopify. What a fun group! They really nailed the cold calling portion of the training. 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 an absolute 🚀 I've said this before. They're growing 25%+ year over year. Very rare for a company their size. They made 150+ product updates in Q2 alone. Over $1 TRILLION has been sold through their platform. ✅ Their SDR org is top 1% Matt Saxon heads up the SDR org in EMEA. You get all of the tools, support, training, and coaching you need to be world-class. They're using AI better than anywhere I've seen. ✅ Great front-line leaders Birk Angermann heads up the EMEA team. Shout out to all their front-line leaders/coaches: Matthias Kleven, Hisham Khan, Anastasia Sfregola, Dominik Moecklin, Paul Storton, Rich Mason, Marion Escaffre, Dominik Moecklin ✅ World-class enablement Siobhan Sweeney, Brittany S. S. H., and Dan 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 Tag someone you know this could be a great opportunity for.

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Salesforce is now a $291B market cap company. Old school, cold email lead gen directly contributed to their success. They scaled lead gen by sending more cold emails with basic personalization. They created a role specifically to handle this function and specialized the closers into what we now know as AEs. Ridiculously effective. Nobody should dispute that the invention of the SDR was one of the most BRILLIANT maneuvers in B2B. In a startup environment, when you have a tactic that you can ethically exploit, you MUST do it. You’re pretty much obligated to. The real problem is: 👉 Not knowing when to move on. FIVE YEARS ago RZ began to see the writing on the wall and decided to call it quits on trying to scale mass outbound. Instead, we've generated millions upon millions of ARR for our B2B clients through SEO. We partner with marketing leaders to create a content strategy built and informed by a powerful strategic narrative. Seems like we went to something new but really SEO is the oldest digital marketing channel and content marketing is as old as time. Outbound always works. Content always works. Social always works. Paid always works. SEO always works. Carrier Pigeons always works. etc. The mastery of B2B includes knowing what tactics are currently the easiest to capitalize on, while never losing sight of the fundamentals. Anytime you're caught up in a cult-like devotion to a particular way of doing things, you're probably missing something. Walk the razor’s edge of optimizing and expanding channels while avoiding a "grass is always greener" approach.

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I just finished a 60-min call with an Account Executive at Salesforce discussing one deal. It would make or break their quarter and also put a multiple 5-figure commission cheque in their pocket. >> First 20-min: They walked me through the past 3 months. The problem, the priority and stakeholders The obstacles, risks and detractors >> The next 10-min I asked questions so I could learn more What they’ve done so far, what they’ve uncovered and haven’t Poking holes in the deal and challenging them >> The next 15-min We rolled up our sleeves and got to work. I provided recommendations and supported each by real examples of similar deals and similar situations I’ve comes across throughout my career. I shared what didn’t work, but most importantly shared what did work. >> The final 15-min We put an actionable plan to execute on the recommendations. What they are going to do and how they are doing to do it. Leveraging x-functional teammates and executives to help reduce risk, overcome the obstacles and progress the deal forward in quarter > The results? The AE is a lot more confident in the deal and has a plan to execute immediately. ……………………………… Sometimes you need another perspective when looking at your key deals. To challenge you, pokes holes in deals and provide recommendations you may not have gotten otherwise. ………………………….. P.S. if you’re looking to level up your Sales acumen, feel free to DM or check out my profile and if you’re a Salesforce employee, my coaching programs are reimbursable by your education stipend

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