Rachel Wong

Ready to transform your customer success strategy with cutting-edge insights? Dive into this episode of Scale Your Sales, where Emma Lo unpacks the latest trends in customer success and AI-driven personalization. Emma, the onboard czar at Noibu and leader of Canada's thriving CS in Focus community, shares golden nuggets on predictive analytics, the importance of customer advisory boards, and the true meaning of personalization at scale. You don't want to miss this episode; it's a blueprint for game-changing growth! https://lnkd.in/ehqgZB7R #scaleyoursales #customergrowth #techleadership #technology #AI #sales

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Catie Ivey, CRO of Walnut, recently joined me on The GOATS of Growth to discuss the differences between selling in today's environment versus selling just a few years ago. Of course, as a GTM recruiter, the thing that stuck out most to me was what she says in this clip below about the level of talent required on the go-to-market team when budgets are tight. There's a big difference between great sellers and CSMs and everyone else--and it's never been more apparent. We also talked about: -Creating buyer-centric experiences -Unit economics and KPIs she tracks -Her transition from VP to CRO -Traits she looks for when hiring -Much more Access to the full episode will be in the comments, or just search for The GOATS of Growth online or in your podcast app. Catie, thanks again for joining me! Please follow Catie for more great content.

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A question for Sales Leaders re: quotas - A friend in Medical sales just got their quota...halfway through May (almost halfway through the year). As a territory manager they hustled in 2023 and achieved 111% to quota. They were #4 in Canada and #1 in Ontario. Great, right? Wrong... As a reward, they were gifted with a 12% increase in quota not from previous year's quota, but from previous year's achievement, and to me this just doesn't make sense. 👉 This type of quota calculation rewards those who achieved 90% (or even lower ) 👉 Demotivates those high achievers - They used their relationships to get orders in before quarter/year end and those doctors won't be needing those products perhaps for 18 months 👉 Promotes #quietquitting - doing the minimum requirements of one's job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary 👉 Promotes mediocrity - the more I sell the more will be expected of me next year My friend is understandably demotivated. They are the first ones to help with any events, often being away from home on a weekly basis to help other colleagues with their events/sales. They no longer want to put in any extra work and are questioning the company and whether it may be time to leave. I would love to hear from Sales Leaders out there as to how you calculate quotas, what systems/products you use, and how you deal with employees who have questions.

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Sometimes, you get a reminder of why you do what you do: one of our customers just shared how Grw AI transformed their sales org in one quarter - their entire team exceeded quota plus their average ACV went up! Stories like this are the fuel that drives us to keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in AI-augmented sales and the momentum keeps building: 🚀 July is our biggest sales month ever (with another week still to go). We've onboarded incredible sales teams onto the platform and are seeing record usage. 🚀 We’re deploying new features fast and our CRM integration is nearly ready for new customers. 🚀 A new customer recently stopped me mid sales demo and said, "Wow, this is so much better than I expected!" - before signing up on the call! 🚀 We are planning our upcoming San Francisco trip for the month of September. Looking forward to being back and seeing people we've been building relationships with virtually + meet more incredible people! If you want to experience the world's most advanced Gen AI sales coach, check out Grw AI or DM me! P.S. If you’re going to be in San Francisco in September, let me know, I’d love to connect!

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Enterprise Salespeople - just a friendly push (from someone who isn't impacted by your results but wants you to kick ass) May & June - time to fine-tune  😎 If, on average, you have a 6 + month sales cycle - hopefully you rested up this long weekend.... It's GO time! Any Discovery Calls booked inside what's left of May & the month of June have a shot to close by Calendar Year End. Factor in some down time in July & August & December. This is when you want to: 🚀 review and own the heck out of next steps with ops inside your CRM 🚀work with marketing to provide timely and intelligent collateral for each stage gate of your ops 🚀ensure that decision makers are identified and introduced 🚀hammer away with your sales leader/founder the key accounts and get support 🚀build plans with your champions to get these deals to their natural close 🚀understand how market forces/head winds/corporate budgets etc might create a sense of urgency for prospects Good Luck & Go CRUSH Your Quotas - like only you can!!! AND make sure you have some personal activities for growth inside your daily calendar!!! That part is always non-negotiable!! If I can help - happy too! startupsalesgrowth.ca #sales #saas #saassales #founders #startups #startupsales #proptech #realestate #enterprisesales #ae #bdr #salesteams #salesculture #salesprocess #salescycle #salesstrategies #salestips #quotas #salesquotas #revenue #salesleadership #salespeople #worklifebalance #marketing #salesandmarketing #mentalhealth #salesprospecting #crm #nextsteps #coaching #b2b

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HIRING NOW: ENTERPRISE & COMMERCIAL AE - SaaS - Automation - $ALES & MARKETING account signals and insights SaaS tool 💸 Commercial Account Executive: $125k base 50/50 split - $1m quota 💸 Enterprise Account Executive: $150k base 50/50 split- $1.2m quota Actual inbound leads - $20k - $500k deal sizes - 6 months sales cycle You keep account in your book of business for upsells while CSMs are responsible for renewal #seriesbstartup, working under one of our longer term #vpofsales who JUST started - you must have experience - at an earlier stage org of less than 200 employees - selling a complex solution - ideal experience selling into #gtm #salesleaders or desire to Selling into other SaaS orgs! work with clients like GitLab Notion MongoDB and MORE - providing insights on how their #gtm can do more with less, and make more $$ In a world of tech, where everything is connected it is more possible than ever before to build connections between your current clients, and your ideal prospects This solution combines Sales, Marketing, Community and Operations and uses AI to enrich, score and analyze intent - $ignals are one of the most important aspects of monitoring what is working, and the best way to target, support and optimize every account. An ideal rep understands sales strategies including #productledgrowth and #productledsales MUST BE HUNGRY, LOVE BUILDING PROCESSES and have experience working in a startup get on my schedule! 206 747 9724 #accountexecutive #commercialaccountexecutive #enterpriseaccountexecutive #gtmsaas #gtmsales #salesjobs #salescareers #bestfootforward #softwaresales #saassales #salesdevelopment

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Today’s episode with Mark Bergen, former VP Revenue at Shopify, is a special one for me. Mark gave me my big break into tech sales after I cold called him in 2015 and I teamed up with again at Shopify at few years later. Berg, as he’s affectionately known, is one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked with. He genuinely cares about his team, engages people in a compelling vision, executes on strategy and produces great leaders. He has easily the highest Q-Rating of any leader I’ve been around, which I'm sure people will be quick to mention in the comments. He’s the people’s champ on top of being and incredible executive. From an early role helping a struggling company find product-market fit, to leading Shopify’s enterprise GTM motion during its meteoric rise, Mark has seen every stage of the SaaS journey. Now, as a fractional executive advising multiple companies, he reflects on decades of experience to share timeless lessons for scaling teams, aligning cross-functional priorities, and building enduring organizations. We talked about: Partnering with Product in Engineering-First Companies Thinking Long-Term in a Short-Term World The Journey of Sales Acceptance at Shopify Building High Impact Partner Programs Lessons in Leadership and Followership I hope everyone listens to this one because Berg deserves a lot more attention than he gets. He's too humble for his own good. 😆

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Next year, Lightspeed Commerce will exit its teenage years and turn 20. What does that maturity mean? For me, it’s all about shifting from simply a growth mindset to one of profitability. I sat down with Gus Papageorgiou, our Head of Investor Relations and host of the Inside Lightspeed podcast, to discuss this cultural shift, where we’re heading, and how my role as CEO will guide this moving forward. When Lightspeed first started, we were all about seizing opportunities — whether it was moving to the cloud early on, expanding into new markets, or launching payments. These bold moves have driven us to where we are today. Now, as we approach this new chapter, we're putting an emphasis on: - Doubling down on areas where we can truly excel and deliver the most value to our customers. - Making profitability our new North Star and ensuring that every move strengthens our foundation. - Staying true to our core mission: helping SMBs thrive. But now, we’re doing it with a sharper focus on long-term success. Had a great time reflecting on Lightspeed’s past, as well as discussing our vision for the future. Check out the full podcast here: https://lnkd.in/gF3vG-Qn

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Struggling to measure ongoing knowledge in sales enablement? AI is the game-changer we need. How do you measure your AEs knowledge and readiness over time? Take a monthly quiz? I am pretty sure they’ll leave as fast as they can. Most CROs I know use the proxy of ARR closed as a measure of AE proficiency in product knowledge. But what about when the market goes down? The best of AEs don’t bring in money. That doesn't mean that their enablement is bad. Also, your AEs know details of some topics and for some others, they need help. Today, companies don't really have a way to measure and do focused enablement for such cases. (some exemplary enablement folks find ways) I believe AI will be a game changer here. It can analyze the QnA every AE faces on calls and emails, and create knowledge trend lines by ranking those answers. Resulting in an continually updated stack rank of AEs. Imagine a leaderboard for AEs by knowledge trends: identify the bottom 20%, provide targeted training, and track their progress. Real, measurable improvements for Sales.

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If you're in sales and not following Nikki Lang you're missing out on some incredible content on building a more resilient mindset. I'm not one of the amazing contributors on here that is open and vulnerable about their struggles. I've always been a heads down and power through kind of individual, but I've seen the value in sharing those experiences. Our twins turn 8 in a few weeks, and I was a player/coach hybrid when they were born. At 6.5 weeks premature, they both had to be in the NICU, but unfortunately one needed more help than the other. Insurance would only lifeflight our sicker preemie to a better equiped NICU hospital so for almost 6 weeks my wife was driving from the house to hospital 1 30 minutes away to spend the morning with one child, then driving another 30 minutes to hospital 2 to visit the other before coming home in the evenings to get time with the older boys. We had some incredible help from a niece who flew out to nanny our two older boys for 2 weeks. At the time, we didn't have parental leave, so I used up all the vacation I had (not much) and then tried to leave work early every day to visit both hospitals. When we finally were able to bring our twins home, one still needed oxygen (try keeping a 100 foot long oxygen hose from getting tangled with a dog and two older boys....) and sensors that went off like a fire alarm if his O2 levels dropped to much. They also went off if they simply fell off at 2am in the morning. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, my wife and I were exhausted. The new year hit, I had had my best Q4 ever billing-wise, and so I made the conscious decision to prioritize myself and my family. I stepped back from my leadership role to be an IC and continued to leave work mid-afternoon to give my wife a break at home. TL;DR Burnout is real, and it sucks. Early in my career I always felt like burnout something that just happened and you had to fight through it. Through experience, I've learned you can (almost) always avoid it if you learn to better manage your time, priorities, and mental well being. I'm still not there yet, bad days happen, but life is exponentially easier when you prioritize the important things.

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I'm hiring more SDRs for Plena for the start of the year. Role: Remote U.S. and Canada only. Compensation: $60K to $70K base with OTE of $105K. You'll be selling primarily to other sales people. We use our own product here at Plena and you'll be making calls with Orum 🥇. Job responsibilities: Come on...you're an SDR. This should be old hat by now! Primarily cold calling. Some one-off email follow ups. No recruiters, no agencies. And certainly no reaching out to anyone that works with me or for me to get intel on who I am and how I hire. Seriously, had that issue last time and I'm just going to blanket statement that if my team reports that someone has reached out to them, I'm not even going to bother with an interview The hiring process so there's no surprises: Step 1. Cold call me (you can find me in pretty much any data provider.) Step 2. Coffee chat with a member of the SDR team (I'll make the introductions week of December 2nd.) Step 3. Interview with me Step 4. Interview with CEO Ground rules for cold calling me: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST per the TCPA guidelines. To be considered must call me no later than 9 p.m. EST on Friday December 6th, 2024.

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With quota attainment at 42.7% in Q2-24 (RepVue data), your comp plans matter more than ever. We hosted Gabe Rothman on #RevOps Lab to chat about about comp planning for complex scenarios. CONTEXT Background on Rescale: - Consumption pricing - Margin on deals fluctuate - Customer buy credits over time - Spend fluctuate The context above can create very complicated comp plans. Instead, Gabe and his team choose to what he refers to 1st principles: - Limit complexity - Be outcome oriented - Don’t overcommit - Bend reality to your will The outcome 1. Comp on bookings (new logo, expansion, renewals) - Easy to understand - Transparent 2. Hedge P&L risk for company - Compensation isn't a contract - Opt-out clause for deals where margin creates business risks 3. Excellence in Ops & Finance - Finance & Ops predict margin via Deal Desk - Commission is based on key business fundamentals - Reduces complexity for AEs Any tips on comp plans worth sharing? Comment 👇 -- 🔊 Listen to the full episode - link to RevOps Lab in my profile ♻ Share with your friends Thanks for sharing those invaluable lessons w/ our audience, Gabe! #revops #saas

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In a year marked by economic uncertainty and shifting market dynamics, Lightspeed’s 2nd annual Sales Benchmark Report dives deep into the data to uncover how startups are navigating sales challenges in 2024. Surveying 154 companies across its portfolio and network, Lightspeed identified critical trends from rising revenue attainment and the rebound in sales quotas to the challenges of deal slippage and AI adoption. This year’s report provides actionable takeaways for startup founders and sales leaders looking to refine their strategies and stay competitive. #business #techstartups #aistartups #softwarecompanies #enterprisesales #organizationalleadership #salesleadership #salesmanagement #salesstrategies #saasstartups #saasbusiness #saassales #saascompany #saasproduct #saasgrowth #productmanagement #businessstrategy #growthstrategies #gtm #gtmstrategy #gotomarket #saasbenchmark #productmanagement #monetization #growthstrategy #growthhacks #saas #benchmarkreport #salesbenchmark #researchreport #sales2024 #2025outlook #2024trends #2025vision #salesmetrics #saasmetrics #marketresearch #growthstage #expansion #growthmetrics #annualreport #keymetrics #futuretrends #startupfounders #founders #entrepreneurs #scalingup #marketanalysis #stateofindustry #growthrate #b2bsales #businessvaluation #revops #revenueleadership #gtmleadership #revenueenablement #revenueoperations #salescycle #revenuestrategy #revenueperformance #revenueintelligence #scalingup #scalingbusiness #scaleyourbusiness #salessuccess #saleseffectiveness #salesperformance #researchreport #startupchallenge #startupgrowth #startupstrategies #startupsuccess #earlystagestartups #startupjourney #startup #freereport #ai #artificialintelligence #genai #aitools #aiadoption #aideployment #salestrends #startupecosystem #vc #venture

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Wake up. Try. Fail (probably). Do it again. Just make sure you’re learning along the way and enjoying the journey. Then one day... maybe just maybe… you’ll have built something big. Matthew Volm, CEO of RevOps Co-op has built the premier RevOps community (13k+ strong!). His modest answer & clear-eyed takes are worth a listen (will be posting more in the coming weeks). Matthew’s Playbook for Revenue OKRs is now available in Daydream and available to you when you connect your CRM. It will help keep your GTM teams aligned with each other, focused on company-level goals, and learning quickly. 👇 Check out the link in the comments. 👇

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hey RevOps - if you're a high-velocity SMB shop selling a large number of small deals, how should you grant quota credit to AEs? 🤔 Signature date? Payment date? Contract effective date? Like most things in RevOps, simple questions like this do not have simple answers. This question was posted in the RevOps Co-op Slack group recently and the community provided some 🔥 feedback like: 📍 Signature date seems to be the most popular choice, but always with a big caveat 📍 That caveat relates to the amount of churn or turnover when it comes to signed deals that don't pay - if the AEs are closing crumby customers that don't pay, then you want to use payment date instead 📍 If you have deals that get signed far in advance of the contract effective date / subscription start date, this adds additional risk to revenue - so may want to consider using the contract effective date instead 📍 Some folks do a mix; for example, 50% at signature, and 50% at payment (or some other metric, like 6 months after deal signature) 📍 In all cases, you want to make sure the structure is set up to drive the behavior you want to encourage without a huge delay between the work done and incentive provided Anything else you'd add to this list? #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #compensation #incentivemanagement

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4 weeks ago we moved Josh Kim 🤝🏼 into a new role. His goal: get Unify customers to meetings booked in <4 weeks. The results have been off the charts. -- In July, we discovered that bringing Garrett Wolfe from our growth team to sales calls to showcase how we use Unify was a game changer. We knew we needed more of this. But finding someone to act as a "Growth Consultant" full time was tricky. The right person: 1/ Has owned a revenue goal. Holding a bag shapes your incentives, how you act and what you prioritize. There's stress that comes from this. 2/ Works well with customers. Working with customers requires being organized and and being an easy person to talk to. 3/ Deeply knows the product. Josh knows how to write great outbound copy, set up Plays, and do all the other little things our customers need to know to maximize impact. Josh had a rare combination of skills that checked all of these boxes.  Keep up the incredible work Josh 🤝

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One of the biggest disconnects preventing an AEs ability to provide a world class buying experience to prospects is this ⬇️ No visibility of marketings influence on the prospects journey prior to their first call with Sales 👀 By the time and AE speaks to a prospect they may have… - Opted out of a marketing list ✉️ - Had zero dwell time on a number of display ads 😢 - Skipped by video ads on social channels 👀 - Been to an event 3 years ago 😱 BUT 🥊 If you ask any AE do they have this information prior to their meetings 🙃 The answer is NO 🛑 That’s why connecting Marketing and Sales is more important than ever before 😀 Stellar advice to any AE in SaaS is to spend time with your Marketing team. It should be part of all companies onboarding programmes tbh 😎

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SDRs: don’t blast 20 people at the same company on the same day. You’ll kill your – and your employer’s – email deliverability. Here’s a step-by-step guide to avoid that spam trap. A common mistake is over-contacting a company through multiple prospects, which can be counterproductive because their email service provider will quickly flag your sending domain and IP as spam. Here’s how I recommend using Clay to intelligently automate and optimize your email campaigns. Step 1: Segment Your Contacts by Domain Start by categorizing your contacts by their email domains. This initial sorting is crucial as it helps identify which companies you are engaging with and how frequently. Clay can automate this process by extracting and grouping email domains directly from your contact list. Step 2: Use Webhooks for Real-Time Updates Integrate webhooks to get real-time updates every time an email is sent. This will log the exact time and details of the campaign interaction back into Clay, ensuring your timing checks are always based on the latest data. Step 3: Implement Domain-based Timing Checks Once segmented, the next step is to set up a timing mechanism that checks the last contacted date per domain. Set rules in Clay to prevent any new emails if the same domain has been contacted in the past seven days. This helps in maintaining a respectful cadence. Step 4: Validate Email Addresses Before Sending Validation is key to ensuring your emails are reaching real, active users. Use Clay’s enrichment datasets to verify each email address before it goes into your campaign queue. This step uses credits, so by ensuring you only validate emails that meet the domain timing rule, you conserve resources. By integrating these steps into your Clay workflow, you create a robust system that respects your prospects’ space while optimizing your email deliverability. I’d love to hear from #Clay agencies and #BDRmanager / operators. How do you manage contact frequency in your email campaigns? #B2BSales

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Sales at an early stage startup is a grind. I'm building sales motions at both Savio Technology Inc and SalesMVP Lab right now. Prospecting every day. Testing out new messaging. Testing out new segments. Creating targeting lists. Scaling up our email infrastructure so we can reach out to enough folks without getting caught in spam. Figuring out which infrastructure is worth it. Testing different sending tools. Figuring out when to use AI for scale vs not. Running sales cycles. Figuring out the sales process. Testing out pitches. Structuring demos. Deciding whether we need a managed trial step or not. Kareem Mayan is doing a ton of marketing and SEO at Savio. Running cycles. Onboarding new customers. Working on product. Ryan Stocker is running cycles. Working on product and engineering. And it made me realize that I don't think many technical founders really understand what it takes to get a sales motion off the ground. You are fighting inertia. Nobody knows you. You constantly have to put yourself out there every day. Most founders I've talked to are waiting to be found... It's hard for only 3 people to pull the bus. The hardest part is getting it to move. Once it starts moving, you can pick up pace. But you need to expend a ton of energy at the start to get that bus moving. Probably 10x more than what you are doing now. -- 👋 I'm Dan, Founder @ SalesMPV Lab. 🔔 Hit "Follow" for more on sales & startup-building. ⚙️ I help technical founders learn sales.

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