Jamie King

Why SaaS companies find it difficult to hire Sales professionals in Germany: - There's a huge supply & demand issue - Companies fail to empathise with the German culture - They don't have a data centre in Germany - They don't have translated marketing collateral - German sellers are more conservative - They don't have localised leadership - Hiring processes lack detail & transparency - Becoming a salesperson after getting a degree/masters is still stigmatised; there's still a lack of talent in the market To my German network, what other mistakes do SaaS companies make when trying to hire salespeople?

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Stop obsessing over OTE on its own. It's a vanity metric that doesn't really matter if loads of other factors aren't on point. I know a lot of AE's ''on €160k OTE'' who just earn their base salary. The achievability of the OTE and the impacting factors do matter: - Quality of leadership - Training & Coaching - Product Market Fit - % current team on target - Saturation of the sales team - Bonus Structure OTE is an important aspect of course, but all A players I speak with don't give much importance to the OTE figure on its own.

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CS teams pay for themselves: Lower support costs + higher retention + expansion revenue + referrals > team costs. It's preventive medicine. Let me break down the typical ROI calculation for a CS team: Costs: Average CS Manager salary UK: £50,000-£75,000 CS tools/software:£8,000-£25,000 annually Training and enablement: £5,000-£8,000 annually Per CS team member total cost: ~£100,000/year Returns: Churn prevention: If each CS manager handles 50 accounts Average contract value: £30,000 Preventing just 4 churns = £120,000 saved Expansion revenue: Typically 15-30% of book of business On £1.5M book = £225,000-£450,000 potential Reduced support costs: 20-40% through proactive management Referral value: 2-3 referrals per happy customer Marketing value: feedback captured that drives business or service improvements and use cases that entice new sales

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Success in sales often comes from finding creative ways to adapt your outreach strategy. Every prospect is different, and so is the path to booking a meeting. What worked once might not work again, so it’s essential to adjust, whether it’s diving into a research paper they wrote or connecting over shared interests. It’s about thinking outside the box and delivering value in ways that resonate personally. (Reposting the original post below 👇)

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Make a Deal with Your BDR Why settle for just "leads" when you can create a partnership? Here’s the deal: BDRs and Account Managers (AMs) are perfectly positioned to supercharge each other’s success—but only if they work as a team. What BDRs can do for AMs: - Deliver not just more leads, but better leads. - Take on deeper qualification, company analysis, or call follow-ups. - Prep tailored recaps so AMs hit the ground running. What AMs can do for BDRs: - Share real-world sales tactics that textbooks won’t teach. - Offer mentorship that accelerates their growth into future sales roles. - Involve BDRs for more professional tasks (so they’re not just “first-touch machines”) When BDRs get sharper, AMs win. When AMs win, BDRs feel the impact. It’s a virtuous cycle—and it works. Stop thinking of BDRs as support staff. Think of them as your partners. Maximize their potential, and watch yours grow. What did I miss? #SalesEnablement #SalesManagement #SalesGrowth

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I got a question - if the Customer Success team vanished tomorrow/ was made redundant would anyone really care? Before you react/ give me hate - think about it. If CS is doing its job, there should be a clear, irreplaceable impact that’s felt across every single customer touchpoint. But if you’re just there to prevent churn, to keep things afloat, to keep customers ‘happy’ & 'build relationships' without real outcomes - are you truly essential, or are you just… convenient? Let’s dig deeper. Ask yourself these 10 honest questions: 1. If AI or automation could handle your daily tasks, what would be left that justifies your role? 2. Are you delivering measurable outcomes that customers value, or just filling the gaps that better onboarding could cover? 3. When was the last time you proactively solved a customer problem before they even noticed it? 4. Would your absence disrupt their success plans, or would they quickly find an alternative? 5. Are you genuinely creating long-term impact, or just managing a retention checklist? 6. If your customer only hears from you when they’re about to churn, are you really adding value or just performing damage control? 7. How often are you challenging your customers to grow, or are you only there to make them ‘feel good’ about their choice? 8. If budget cuts hit, would customers lose critical value, or would they barely notice the difference? 9. Are you building a legacy of success for your customers, or are you coasting on goodwill without delivering results? 10. Do your customers need you to succeed, or are they just tolerating you? So, tell me - if you vanished tomorrow, why would anyone miss you? Customer Success shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be a force, a driver, an essential part of a customer’s growth strategy. If you’re not indispensable, if you’re not making yourself irreplaceable, then ask yourself why. Because if you’re not essential… then maybe you’re just replaceable. Connect with me to learn more on strong CS strategy/ playbooks/ processes/ tools/ teams - block 𝟣:𝟣 here https://lnkd.in/gjQxGq7f #CustomerSuccess #Value #Outcomes #ROI Photo by Roseanna Smith on Unsplash

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Tell me if you agree. This is true. However to achieve this, the supporting teams like Product, Engineering, Support, billing etc. will need to scale up and ensure that the CSMs are not having to deal with things line downtime, support ticket updates, frequent product/platform failures etc. Trust me, managing customers who are unhappy because of downtime or silence from support or unstable product/ platform is draining for the CSMs. If this is managed by the respective teams with Tech Support playing the first line of defence/ update for any thing tech, CSMs can do magic with customer experience and revenue.

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OTE on its own means nothing. It's a fugazi. There's still far too much focus on OTE when hiring. Less than 35% of AE's hit target last year (depends on source but it isn't high) and so in most cases candidates did not hit that beloved OTE number. I would pick a highly achievable €140k OTE over an impossible €180k OTE every day of the week. Who wouldn't? As an alternative, when advertising roles, why don't we just work with: - Basic Salary range - Quota & % attainment - Anonymous example earnings in the team - Clearly presented comp plan Do you agree?

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GTM of SaaS companies HAVE TO CHANGE in 2024. 🏄‍♂️ Scott Leese explains why. The old model of Inbound/Outbound Marketing/SDR/AE motion is too bloated for most companies, and can only fit those well-established brands in well-established categories where product-market fit has been figured out, budgets are set and the customer need is clear. For everyone else - we need to work harder and find better GTM motions. A bloated SDR outbound motion is no longer an effective way for generating pipeline and revenue.

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I'm slightly obsessed with Outbound Sales. There's so much nuance to it. But there is a formula..... A way of making it work, well. 1. Building target account lists. 2. Mapping contacts to accounts. 3. Setting up intent models 4. Lead prioritisation markers 5. Account Lead routing 6. Contact Lead routing. 7. Positioning & Messaging 8. LinkedIn Outreach 9. Community Outreach 10. Email 11. Calls 12. Lead stages - with clear criteria 13. Lead to Deal / Op process 14. Discovery Playbooks 15. Qualification playbooks 16. Lead lost reasons 17. Sales Outreach Enablement 18. Lead Insight Analytics 19. Great leadership.... .....the list goes on..... I love it - because it's so complex. Anyone who thinks SDRs have got it easy..... ....think again. It's remarkable that businesses leaders expect SDRs to run without #revenueoperations. are we expecting SDRs to build out this infrastructure for themselves? I'm curious to learn which sales people are managing ALL of this and who has been blessed with a #RevOps resource - to help you get more done?

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In my sales career, I have not made that many cold calls. At least not as many as some SDRs who dial 100 times a day But I have succeeded with 44% of those I connected with Here are my top 10 reasons why: 1️⃣ I only called countries I can speak the mother tongue: UK, DE, CH, AT and very little US 2️⃣ I called mostly mobile numbers I found on Lusha or Cognism 3️⃣ I learned the first 60 seconds of the call until I felt really comfortable 4️⃣ I only call people I can reasonably assume have the challenge we solved with other companies. 5️⃣ I do a little bit of research before I call (max. 5 min). I check their LinkedIn profile and whether they have something I can use on the company website 6️⃣ I always watch my voice: I talk really really slowly, really really clearly and make sure I frequently change the tone. If the other person did not understand my name on the first go, I did not succeed (in my head) 7️⃣ I always start with "Hi Thomas, this is Patrick at Taskbase, hi" and then wait until the other person says "hi" the second time. That can take up to 5s. Embrace the silence. This way, you are different to 90% of cold callers 8️⃣ I haven't changed my opener for years: "Do you give me 35 seconds so that I can explain to you why exactly I call you right now?" because I succeed almost 100% of the time - I never change what works 9️⃣ I never talk about the product in the first 60 seconds of the call. I always start with the challenge: "I am talking to a lot of sales leaders of other banks who tell me they have one main challenge: Their consultants spend a lot of time documenting their client calls in the CRM. Up to 30 minutes because they have to write manually. Are you familiar with that topic? That is how I immediately get into a conversation and people forget that this was a cold call after all - just happened yesterday again 1️⃣0️⃣ As soon as I sense that the topic is interesting, I ask one or two more questions and then go for the meeting: "Thomas, can I make a suggestion? I sense that we have a topic here that is worth talking about a bit deeper. Do you mind if we take 30 min in a video call and deepen the discussion? I think we both at least can learn something from it That's it No rocket sience

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I see a lot of people posting successful playbooks, sequences and mail or DM openers. But there is one other issue that nobody seems to address....the ICP. Most SDRs do not really take into the whole ICP filtering, but instead they just blindly send 1000s of emails and messages to random companies. Let's be honest, will the person that is working in SDR outsourcing company really buy more SDRs? Does the Head of Sales of SoftDev company need developers or really cheap but groundbreaking, supercharged website? Take time to study your prospects. LEARN YOUR ICP!

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CSMs - how are you introduced to new customers? 🤔 We know the role is varied and deserves explanation. Should it take 30-60 seconds to cover the value statement... or can it be achieved in a single phrase?  6 examples I have seen used...    1. I am your primary point of contact 1️⃣ 2. I am your strategic advisor 🤮 3. I am your point of escalation 🔥 4. I am the extension of your team 🔜 5. I am your dedicated account manager 🖊️ 6. I am here to help you use and get value from our product 👨🏻‍💻 Do any of these work for you? Does it depend on the CS specialism? Does it depend on the customer? Does it matter? 😂 Let me know in the comments! #clientsuccess #customersuccess #saas

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Every time you see churn, you should see this: BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION BAD DECISION And guess what? Every single one of them was on you. PERIOD. - Sales: You closed a deal with just about anyone who could pay all cause "$'s matter".. right? WRONG. You just handed CS a grenade with the pin already pulled. - CS Leadership: You were too busy tracking NPS scores to notice the ticking time bomb in your renewal pipeline. "Let’s hit that engagement target!" wohooo.. utter garbage - Congrats, you hit NOTHING. - Product Team: "We're focused on innovation", AI this, AI that.. Cool, but why does your innovation have nothing to do with what the customer needs? Oh, you didn’t ask them? Nice. Real nice. - Marketing: Your campaigns are great but you forgot to deliver a single shred of value. Now they hate us. Thanks for that. - Finance: GMV, Margin.. are so good in this segment.. Shut up. Bad-fit customers eat margins for breakfast. If your customers don't see value, you've got no margins to protect anyway. - Customer Success Managers: Yeah, I'm coming for you too. You're chasing check-ins and prepping for QBRs while the customer is quietly disengaging. Really that what you signed up for? Baby sitting people? So hell yeah .. CHURN IS YOUR FAULT. Period. A series of BAD DECISION which should have been nipped in the bud. It's not the customer's fault they left - you gave them a reason. With your decision. It's not the competitor's fault they won - you gave them the opening. With your decision. It's not the market's fault you are lagging - YOU made the wrong decisions. Churn is a mirror. And it reflects every decision that failed you and your customer. Ask yourself: How many of those bad decisions were within YOUR control? And did you do enough to stop idiots around you from making a bad one? What will you do today to stop the next domino from falling? Churn isn't a mystery - it's a decision chain. Fix the chain. Fix your churn. If you're making excuses instead of changes, guess what? MORE CHURN IS COMING. Fix your onboarding. Fix your processes. Fix your roadmap. FIX. YOUR. DECISIONS. Or don't. And keep stacking BAD DECISION after BAD DECISION after BAD DECISION until you have nothing left to lose but your job. YOUR MOVE. #churn #customersuccess #leadership #leaders #startups #founders #saas #linkedin #customersuccessmanagers #customersuccessmanger #CSM #CSMS Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

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𝙏𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝘾𝙎 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚... 🏞️ It's been a difficult time for people in most disciplines, especially if they're looking for their next home, but it's been especially tough in the Customer Success space. - The 'Us vs Them' narrative between Sales and CS (or Presales) is still rife... The argument of 'Feature vs Value' is less about the people involved on the frontline and more about how organisations are structuring their customer facing teams, as well as how those teams are targeted/ measured for success. - The evolution of CS is constantly shifting, with sales leaders being brought in to manage CS orgs and the battle of 'Is it Account Management or Customer Success?' rages on. It seems most agree that CS should be responsible for a number, but is there a better way to use this number to bring unity amongst these teams? - The future lies in a mission/ product led approach. It's great to bring on tonnes of new customers, but if they're not adopting the products properly or aren't engaged with the service or solution, they won't stick around. They'll find another business that will help them fully immerse - The Technology space is highly competitive and it's how you engage with your customers that will make all the difference. Customer Success is not just a support function or cost centre, well at least it shouldn't be. It's where some of the most valuable information is discovered, which could be critical to the overall success of the pre/ post sales functions and in turn, the customer. Some businesses have identified this and use it to their advantage, by keeping open lines of communication throughout the customer value chain... But there are still a lot that don't. They haven't uncovered the impact that defining SE and CS contribution has to key business goals (securing new customers and retaining them!). The Sales Recruitment Company

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Oct was a stellar pipeline month for us, we had the most outbound meetings booked since I started. But I keep hearing industry rumors that the XDR role is dying, outbound sales are not working, the old model is not viable etc etc. This is not true, keep experimenting, trying new things, and finding new ways to work. Here are a few things that are working for us.... 1. We brought in some new leadership to help us rethink the XDR function. This new way of thinking was much more data-intense, learning from each tweak, and focused on the details. We leverage AI for certain things, we test and experiment with tailored messaging. 2. We re-examined our inbound funnel and found plenty of opportunities. We improved how we engage with customers. Anything from the right time to make a phone call, to speed to follow up to how to use social media for engagement. 3. We re-enabled our AEs on prospecting. We did this with an AI-first mindset. Leveraging chatbots to help with outreach prep makes sellers much more efficient. Learning the right prompts to help accelerate tailored outreach is a big advantage. 4. We leaned into our Outreach efforts. I know that the inbound model is great, but there is a lot of noise out there and it is hard sometimes to differentiate. It also requires an element of outreach to make it work. Outreach (inbound led or outbound led) is more efficient than ever right now. There are so many tools available to help focus on good-fit companies, good fit prospects, competitor dynamics etc. All of these tools make outbound sales and tailored inbound follow-up more effective than ever. Props to David Ristau, Samuel Killworth Kate Klippert Hamish Jenkin and Jake Dunlap (CEO of Skaled - who helped with our training) for seeing this through. Let's keep up the intensity!

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We’ve been doing it wrong. The idea of sales has plateaued. And now, it's on a decline. Winners are glorified while losers sit in shame. The “all or nothing” mentality - where your worth is measured solely by deals. No deals? No holiday 🙄 No peace of mind. Just endless pressure. It’s a constant chase. In fact, it's a trap. And it happens every single year. Especially if it's the last quarter - The Final Sprint 👟 That cycle doesn’t just corner us - it drains us. Sales pros who should be thriving are merely surviving. Living quarter to quarter. Missing family moments. Burning out chasing after the next “yes.” ==================== But here’s the truth: that mindset is outdated. The landscape has changed. And so must we. Sales isn’t a sprint to the finish. It's supposed to be a journey we embark on with the customers. Sales is a discipline. A steady, intentional process built on trust, not pressure. The modern buyer doesn't want to be pushed. They want to be understood. They’re seeking partners. Not product pushers. Buyers still want to buy, but it has to be on their terms. They want to be part of the experience, not rushed through it. They want to feel empowered, respected, and credited. They still want to be influenced - but not forced. The painful truth? They won’t tell you that. They’ll walk away silently, leaving you chasing shadows. Deals slip through your fingers, and you wonder why. It’s not because they don’t need what you offer. It’s because you’re not meeting them where they are. We’re stuck in the old ways—pushing, while they’re looking for collaboration, not confrontation. The discipline is to step back and lead with your prospects, not ahead of them. ==================== Here’s an approach which allows me to preserve my mental health, bond with my family and achieve overall collective calm - so much so that it irritates the hell out of some of my managers 😄 🔷 Stop obsessing over the outcome Focus on the process. Every conversation teaches you something. Growth doesn’t only happen when deals close. It happens when you connect and understand. 🔷 Trust in Abundance There’s more than enough. More prospects, more opportunities, more success. The right opportunities come when you’re not desperate. 🔷 Detach from the Results When you stop chasing, things flow naturally. Real connections form. You learn what people need, not just what you want to sell. ==================== Don't end the year with burnout. Don't start the year with fear. Make the change and do the unthinkable. Stop Selling and Start Building. This is discipline. The discipline to stay focused, build real relationships, and trust that the right opportunities will come. The end of Q3 marks the beginning of the sprint. More importantly, it marks the time to prep for 2025. Start building the momentum NOW. Write, Share, Connect... And Grow 😎 Stop Selling Start Building ✌ Stories, Tips & PoVs > Sufi R.

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If you are a #CSM then ask yourself this question every morning when you start work: "Why...?" And no...it is NOT: "Why...am I here?" 😅 As every CSM or #CS leader knows - every day in CS is a busy one. You have a long to-do list. Many KPIs to hit. Customers reaching out. Leaders asking you for things. Meetings back-to-back. It's easy to get overwhelmed. It is even easier to get distracted. And almost impossible to optimize your time. That is where "Why?" comes into the picture. When you start your day (or finish the previous day): 📆 Look at what you have on the calendar 📋 Look at your inevitable to-do list 📲 Look at your meetings for the day 🕺🏽 Look at how much "free" time you have that day Now consider your short-term goals & KPIs: weekly/monthly And consider your medium-term goals & KPIs: Quarterly/qualitative Here is where you ask yourself, "Why?" - Why should I spend time on this activity? - Why is that meeting important (or how to make it important)? - Why is this task at the top of my list? - Why, why, why... If the answer does not include something in line with..."because it best helps me get to this goal or KPI"...then you probably should not prioritize it. The reality in CS is that you never have enough time. There is always more. You can even spend TOO much time on GOOD activities. So don't waste it. Ask "why?". And maximize each day. *** 🛎️ If you enjoy my content, follow me for more ♻️ Repost to share with your network #CS #customersuccess #accountmanagement #timemanagement #csvalue #revsetter

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