Arpith Natu

CSMs are heroes without capes. An average CSM handles almost 70 accounts. Considering 160 work hours a month. A CSM on average gets 2.5 hours per customer per month And what do we expect them to handle? -> Churn ❌ -> Renewals 💰 -> Case Studies 📖 -> Up-Selling 🤑 -> Firefighting bugs and feedbacks 🐞 -> QBRs and regular checkups 📈 If you are not helping them with clear insights on which customer needs attention - you are doing injustice. Join our waitlist - we can help you with predictive insights on your churn/expansion accounts specific to your business model. Link to the waitlist (2 months free trial) in the comments. #customersuccess #churn #ai

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Indian sales folks especially SDRs and AEs you are getting it all wrong in your conversations and outreach. What works in the US doesn't always work in India (people, culture, practices, mindset, everything is different) I believe and highly support "Power buys from Power" and I have also graduated from the same school of thought and practice it. However Adding Sir or Mam in your conversations in front of Gray Hair or a Veteran won't make you small Trust me people of that age gets offended when you just call out their name without any salutations. It's not for customers' ego massage or to make them feel superior but to respect their achievements, expertise, and years of experience. However, that doesn't mean you start the conversation with sir sir sir mam mam mam and start sounding salesy and superficial. Remember: "Too much sugar ruins the taste of tea and no sugar makes it completely bitter, Swad anusar istamal kare" #sdr #ae #sales #b2b #powerbuysfrompower

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SDRs starting in B2B with no experience- You are going to fail without the training. Two ways to succeed in B2B: 1. Learn the skills required in b2b 2. Learn the interview skills Two different things. Cracking the interview was step 1. 9/10 companies don't have a training program and while you made the transition you lack the skills. If you need to crack the interview, i can launch an interview course. If you have never written an email before in b2c, you think chat gpt will help you? If each of your cold call started with is it a good time to talk, you think it will work in b2b. You'd be reaching out to a global audience who will hang up in 5 secs. 8/10 candidates we speak to who are making the transition are thinking only about the job. Would you get us a guranteed job? came up in every call. only 2/10 asked questions like what skills will they learn. I can tell you only these people will succeed in the long term. Rest will get frustrated when they wont see the growth. What worked in B2C wont work in B2B. Manansh kapoor and others put their heart and soul in learning, the amount of questions i answered for them were insane. Make the decision wisely #sales #sdr

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"99% of people I met dislike salesperson or career in sales. Here's what changed my mind and might change yours too. As humans, everybody wants to buy. But people dislike being "sold" to. The job of a salesperson? To influence people's buying decision process & outcome. Buying decisions stem from spending a few bucks on grocery items, to major investments such as a car or house purchase. And life transformations such as weight loss, changing or starting a new career, and traveling abroad. Acknowledging that we are not experts and have limited resources. Decision-making around these areas is risky. Hence none of us wants to trust these hard decisions to chance or some pushy salespersons The Real Job of a Salesperson? Influence decisions: From small purchases to major life changes. Avoid pushing: Instead, guide and support. Sales is about influencing, not coercing—the key is subtlety. Transforming the Sales Experience Inspire, don’t push: Focus on the buyer's needs. Collaborate, don’t dictate: Work together to find solutions. Guide, don’t overshadow: Let the buyer lead their journey. This approach turns transactions into meaningful exchanges. ensuring buyers feel confident and empowered throughout their decision-making process. 💡 Key Insight: Sell with Integrity and Empathy Shift from salesperson to trusted advisor. This change is good for business— builds lasting relationships based on trust and respect. 👇 What's Your Take? Have you felt a shift in your sales approach? What strategies have transformed your view of selling? Join the conversation below! #SalesMindset #EmpathyInSales #TrustBuilding #CustomerCentric

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If you are an outbound SDR cold calling in India, and not able to book 1 meeting a day (at least), something needs to change. In the past 4 years, I’ve rarely seen connect rates in India drop below 35%. That means if you dial 70 numbers, you’ll likely connect with around 25 people. Out of those, you’ll have at least 10 real conversations (yes, even on a bad day—people do talk here!). Now, with a 10% conversion rate, you should be booking at least 1 meeting a day. India is a high-input market for SDRs, and the key is focusing on those inputs. If you put in the effort, the outcomes will follow. Cold calling? It’s still your best bet here, hands down. Sure, try other channels, but cold calls should be your mainstay. Trust me. I remember booking 84 outbound demos in 2 months as an SDR (Only cold calls), when I was at Revv bringing in logos like Dream11, PayTM, LivSpace, etc. Also won a challenge "Revv Premier League" (1 Lakh in cash xD) and a promotion after this :). No fancy tools, no list builders. Literal manual work: scraping, manually finding data, calling, and then locking in demos. Automation is great, and if I had the option, I’d streamline half the process, and if I could, I’d take advantage of it for a lot of tasks. But I would still focus on the critical input—those calls—because that’s what ultimately drives the output. Food for thought: Has automation made us too comfortable and complaining? Are we relying on it so heavily that we’re forgetting to put in the effort to have genuine, impactful conversations? PS: This is not a general view of everything, this opinion is based on my experience :). PPS: If you made it till here, and you are an SDR, I am hiring SDRs for my team, please DM. #sdrs #coldcalling #saassales #hiring

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SDRs - Prospects aren't turning up for the Meeting even after agreeing for it? "Creating Multi Touchpoints & Leveraging them is the Key to Success" (Referring to Touch Points as T.P.) 🔶 Scenario 1: Prospect agrees for a Meeting & you mutually decide on a time. 🔹 T.P 1️⃣ Inform the Prospect that you will connect with them on LinkedIn. Send a personalised invite so that he remembers you. 🔹 T.P 2️⃣ The e-mail containing the Agenda and other details & it will anyway go out as part of the E-meet invite. 🔹 T.P 3️⃣ Tell them that you will also send a WhatsApp message with the meeting details so that he has it handy. Send the details & ask them to accept the invite on WhatsApp if they haven't done it yet. 🔶 Scenario 2: On the Day of the Meeting. 🔹 Send an E-mail reminder as you begin your day so that he is mentally prepared for it. 🔹 30 minutes post the E-mail also send a WhatsApp text reminder. 🔹 If the Prospect hasn't acknowledged any of the above, call the prospect about 2 hours before the E-meet. 🤘 Important Note: If they don't turn up even after these steps then relax, now you have the Touch Points to leverage and reschedule the Invite. #bdr #sdr #sales #ColdCalling #LeadGeneration #BusinessDevelopment #SalesTips #SalesStrategy #SalesSuccess #SalesTraining #SalesSkills #Prospecting #SalesHacks #B2BSales #ClosingDeals #SalesProfessionals #SalesTechniques #OutboundSales #SalesConversion #salesinsights

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Customer Success doesn't start at go live. There are SO many benefits from engaging your CS partner as early as the sales deal. --> Your prospective customer gets to know their long term relationship manager from the get go --> CS can dig in and understand why the prospective customer is buying the product, the value and ROI metrics that are important to them, and how CS can help the customer measure those along the way --> It reduces internal admin time further down the line of a Sales / CS handover meeting where the CS partner has zero context on the customer coming their way. If they're engaged early, these handover meetings become a breeze --> Most of all - it can help secure the deal!!! Check out my website for more ways I can help to increase your CS effectiveness.

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Sales for software companies have changed drastically Let me explain role wise: SDR: SDRs need researchers tagged to them so that they can go to depths of the prospect and win the demo. AE: AE’s need small client with them on the call to explain the use case to the customer. CSM: The CSM has to communicate twice weekly with AI note takers and keep delivering weekly updates to the clients. The entire Software space is moving. If you are not sensing it, are you even in the bubble? Trust me this is the start of something new. Let’s see what the new industry has to offer. P.S. look at the picture. I love it because I feel it. #sales #sdr #saas #softwaresales #business #gtm #growth

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Sad to hear that Freshworks has laid off some employees. Sales 101 will try to find you interviews, and help in anyway we can. If you are an SDR, SDR Manager, Account executive, reach out to Harshvardhan Sameel or myself with the headline- “Laid off from Freshworks”, so we know to prioritize you :) Stay confident, and don’t stop believing! Do comment to spread the message. #layoffs #freshworks #Sales101 #community #sales

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Sales101 is organising a Demo Day! Concept is not brand new, many folks have done it - Storylane, Dimmo 🦖, RevGenius and more. But if you have not been a part of a Demo Day before, let me brief you: 1. 4 Companies present what they are building in Sales Tech Space 2. Each speaker gets 10 minutes for demo and 5 minutes for QnA 3. Plus your questions getting answered in Chat by a rep Why it is great for buyers and early-adopters? 1. No more booking 45 minute calls to see a glimpse ⏲ 2. Had a quick burning question, shoot right away 🔥 3. Liked what you saw, just say the word and they will talk to you on priority What's in it for sellers? 1. Put your product in front of active and passive buyers 2. Show off your differentiations ✋ 3. Sell faster and generate warm leads 🤑 4. Branding and visibility into objections that you don't hear regularly So if you are building something really cool in Sales tech space, let's chat! Only 4 startups for the first demo day ever, so spot will go fast! ⚡

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It's tough to find the right profile for CSM hires as a company is scaling quickly. At an early stage startup, CSMs often wear multiple hats - responsible for implementation, support, QBRs, upsells, renewals, and more. As the company scales, there's a question of whether to hire more generalist CSM profiles or start specializing roles. A few thoughts on defining the right CSM profile & structure: - The Generalist Approach (Seed to Series B) Hiring CSMs with a diverse background can work well. Look for candidates that have previously juggled multiple responsibilities like: - Technical/service delivery  - Project/implementation management - Client-facing account management - Basic sales/business acumen You need CSMs that can quickly get up to speed on your product/industry, but also have the versatility to own the full customer lifecycle. We see a lot of folks with industry domain expertise being recruited into these roles. - The Segmented Approach (usually once you hit $25M ARR) You can start looking at segmenting the CSM role more: - Implementation Specialist: Focused just on flawless onboardings/launches - Renewals Manager: Nurturing expansion revenue and renewals  - Customer Success Architect: Serving as a product/technical expert Allows for deeper specialization, but obviously requires more headcount investment. Some of the soft skills you'd wanna look for include: - Process/project management - Executive presence  - Relationship building - Problem solving  - Technical aptitude As with anything else in life, there's no one size. This is just what we see most orgs doing (or trying to do).

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8 Comments

Imagine every SDR, AE & AM confidently navigating complex sales conversations, armed with solid understanding of their client's-industry 🤔 It's not science fiction. Yet, many still wing it, hoping charm and product pitches will suffice 😰 > thats not enough anymore! This era demands Industry Aligned Selling 💡- clients expect it, and elite sellers make it happen! *Our 45-minute Industry Primers* can be the secret weapon. They're the fastest and most fun way to learn a client's industry. Choose from 50+ industries, and I'll let you test-drive one of our primers: https://lnkd.in/gA2Wk9b2 DM me! 🚀 #salesenablement #salesdevelopment #industryknowledge #industryalignment

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We closed Buffer! From demo to free trial to pilot phase to paid in two months! If you are in Sales, Product, Customer Success or even just work in SaaS, this is a read for YOU. How do we work with Albus clients? Here are 3 things - 1. Albus is a *very* technical product. Our customers don't understand GenAI, LLMs and their nuances. Even I am stunned every once in a while. That's why we established and *mantained* contact with Buffer. Right from day 1. Apoorv who leads many SaaS demos created a direct line for me and Kartik with Buffer after his very first call with them. This led to two great wins - (1) we discovered and fixed two bugs within a couple of hours, and (2) we inspired confidence in Buffer that we are here to make things work. This sign of trust has helped a lot. 2. Can't stress this enough - reduce friction. My friend runs products at a $200MN revenue company in Seattle, and she was asking me yesterday, "Sandeep, how do you get people to speak to you? My customer acquisition specialists have a hard time connecting me to my customers. They simply don't want to speak." The answer's been simple for us at Springworks - sit in their Slack, where they always are. Almost zero friction. Our contacts at Buffer constantly talked to us with problems, ideas and never looked away from asking for help. 3. Weekly calls. We speak to Buffer every two weeks to discuss pain points, expectations and success metrics. Kaneesha, who runs Success across SaaS products builds rapport and helps us discover new use cases across the company. That's how we plan to get adoption *across* the company.

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Salesforce now needs 3x pipeline coverage compared to 2x due to: - longer sales cycle - deal size pressure due to cut backs - lower demand in general In times like these, your win rate matters more than ever. Here are 5 strategies to improve your win rate: 1) Fight pipeline bloat Don't accept: - Unqualified opportunities - Poor deal hygiene - Missing deal insights & signals - Gut-driven deal reviews 2) Simplify your sales process & exit criteria - Clear entry criteria for opportunity creation. So important! - Simple sales process everyone understands + follows - Clear process governance - Simplify exit criteria to ensure your team actually follow them 3) Operationalize your methodologies Remember: Most reps hate sales methodologies as it's "more" work‼ - Help your team understand the "why it matters" to close more deal - Understand what are the key criteria to closing deals and incorporate them - Run ongoing trainings - Train the managers and the reps - Support coaching with hard numbers to showcase success - Tie hard numbers back to leaderboards and commission success 4) Become great at multi-threading Without multi-threading most deals are dead these days‼ - Coach reps on multi-threading tactics - Managers should proactively help multi-thread - Leverage exec & board members to multi-thread further and higher in org 5) Incentivize the right behavior Combine compensation and management to change behavior‼ - E.g. comp more for e.g. higher TCVs and upfront payments - E.g. coach managers to amplify change management aspects - E.g. use CRO to communicate importance of the above - E.g. use data to showcase success This list is by no means extensive and all those topics deserve more details! What would you add? Comment 👇 — 👀 Get free RevOps content like Cheat Sheets, Salary Report - link in profile ➕ Follow me for tips on how RevOps can impact revenue growth ♻️ Share with your friends #revops #saas

27

9 Comments

Its been 2 weeks since getting mentored by Rahul Wadhwa 🦄 founder of school of SDR After his guidance got a clarity what outbound and inbound leads are and how to run a discovery. Inbound vs. outbound prospects are wildly different. They are in separate stages of the buyer journey. Run your discovery calls accordingly👇 ➡️ OUTBOUND discovery: Figure out if this prospect is actually a good fit. 3 possible scenarios: - Not a good fit → disqualify - Good fit but not the right time → nurture sequence - Good fit and good time → set up mutual action plan ⬅️ INBOUND discovery: There is already buyer intent which may he high or medium. Quickly qualify in or out by understanding - Price range & budget - Competitive situation - Solution fit & requirements - Decision process & criteria The mutual action plan should be much tighter. Summary: OUTBOUND = soft, cooperative, educate the prospect, provide solution. INBOUND = rigid, process driven, challenge prospect. Meet your prospects where they are and what they need. What else would you add?👇 PS: Maryada Bawa also guided in Emails next is that. #leadgen #outbound #inbound #sdr #bdr #sales #schoolofSDR

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Do NOT stop doing something that's working because either A) Someone told you it shouldn't work or B) there is a new flashy thing that MIGHT work better. But, you should experiment with it. - Don't fire you mid-market team because you want to move up market. Do experiment by hiring an enterprise rep. - Don't fire your BDR team because you want to focus on community building. Do hire a community building expert to experiment. - Don't quite cold calling because pickup rates have dropped. Do experiment with alternative methods of reaching people. Life isn't binary. Run an experiment. If it works, accelerate and find alignment across your new and old channels. These methodologies work together if done right.

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Sales folks over LinkedIn, try these 3 things if you plan to make a switch this year. 1. On LinkedIn try to find the hiring manager rather than just clicking on Easy Apply Send the hiring manager a voice/video note or a customized DM to stand out of the pack (trust me the R1 gets scheduled way faster) 2. If you want to get hired by your dream company or by a company with a greater hike apply to them during the off-season In bulk/mass hiring generally, the hiring is based on AOP and there is a tight budget and fixed range. 3. Ask for referrals Connect with the existing sales team for referrals to fast-track your R1 (Job portals are already choked) #hiring #sales #allthebest

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In the world of sales, Sales Commissions Payout rules define how sales reps earn their commissions and when they need to be paid out which can significantly impact their sales performance & motivation. Not just Sales commission structures but their Payout logic & conditions are also important for motivating sales teams and drive right behaviour. Here’s a quick overview of common payout rules mostly companies follow in subscription sales: 1. 100% on Closed-Won Deals: Full commission is paid when a deal is closed. It's straightforward and motivating. 2. 100% on Payment Collection: Commissions are paid as payments are collected. This keeps sales reps focused on the entire payment process, helping cash flow. 3. 50% on Booking, 50% on Collection: This approach encourages closing deals and ensuring payments, aligning sales and finance goals. 4. 50% on Booking, 50% on First Invoice Raised: This motivates securing contracts and engaging in billing, connecting booking and revenue. 5. 40% on Booking, 30% on First Payment, 30% on Final Payment: This splits commission across different stages of the contract. 6. 40% on Booking, 60% on Project Go-Live: Sales reps earn part of their commission when they sign a deal and the rest when the project launches. Some companies also tie commissions to performance metrics like customer satisfaction or retention, promoting long-term relationships. Choosing the right payout rules can boost motivation, align sales with business goals, and drive revenue. What payout rules work best for your team? Share your thoughts! #Sales #salesops #Finance #CommissionStructure #SalesIncentives #SalesStrategy #SaaS

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