Jakub Lewandowski

SDRs - Struggling with your ramp? Here are 5 tips to immediately improve your results and beat your ramp 1. Meet with 3 top performing BDRs, pick their brains on everything from Prospecting, Research, Sequences, calls, emails, Linkedin DM's etc. Once you have a good pool of knowledge on strategies that are working in the current market you can adapt it and make it your own. 2. Problem enablement: The most important thing to know is WHO you help and HOW you help them. Speak to your AE's who've closed business, CSMs and your own internal personas. The goal is to be able to crisply articulate how you can help a target persona in a target account get to their desired state. No one cares about WHAT you do, they care about how you can help them. 3. Volume: Practice makes perfect, you're not going to get good without the reps so get out there and prepare to fail. 4. Double down: If you find one medium is yielding more meetings then double down on that one, e.g if you're booking 5 meetings a month through call and 1 via email, try changing to a call only sequence for a while to see if it ups your results. 5. Feedback loops: Regularly ask your top-performing peers, AEs and your manager in your 121 for SPECIFIC advice. This means you'll always be growing your skillset. Make sure you're not getting advice from everyone though as this will dilute your focus P.S I'll do a part 2 of this next week but anything you'd add? For now, enjoy a picture of Emre Ceyhan and me at our recent Spike Week!

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Dear BDR/SDR community, it's important to allocate dedicated time in your calendar and mark time slots such as "Book for Internal Meetings." You might have felt that your calendar is less important than an AE's, but it's just as important! Block out dedicated slots for prospecting and calling, and allocate time for internal meetings. Effective time management is important and often underrated. 🤗 Three benefits of incorporating dedicated slots in your calendar 🖊 : Increase in Productivity: Inserting time slots for internal meetings will ensure your prospecting and calling hours remain uninterrupted and productive. Better Results: Structuring your week with dedicated time blocks will help you maintain focus during your calling sessions, leading to better results. Self-Discipline: Being strict with your calendar will help you stay committed to your goals. It's a skill that will become important for you in the long run. 📞 🔋 #TimeManagement #ColdOutreachTips #BDR #SDR #Prospecting #Sales #HappyHunting #ColdCalling #SaaS #Salestips"

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🚨Cold outreach will not work if you are just doing the basics. ✔️Every time I receive messages from a bunch of SDRs, I don’t reply to any of them because all the messages are so long. So here is the central question: why should I read the people whom I don’t know? Long messages can be overwhelming and time-consuming to read don’t forget this guys, ✔️Try to keep your messages concise and to the point, focusing on the value you can offer to some value guys! ✔️I was with my friend who is the CEO of a startup. We checked the connection requests sent to him on LinkedIn and accepted only the ones without messages. ✔️I asked him why. He said that if someone messages me about the basic templates like this; I would happily connect or add you to my network. I’m sure he will try to sell me something. ✔️Here is a tip, guys: let them visit your LinkedIn profile to see who you are. However, if you send a connection request with a message, it will come off as direct salessy ✔️Building a strong brand on LinkedIn is key. When you have a solid presence, prospects are more likely to accept your connection requests, giving you a better chance to make your pitch. Btw yes I’m using Apollo.io for lead gen :) #sales #sdrs #coldemail #saassales #coldoutreach

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Stop wasting time on boring questions in discovery calls. 🚀 Here are 7 steps to make your discovery calls impactful. 1. Understand your client’s goals and problems. 🤝 2. Bring a clear solution to the table. 💡 3. Review all notes and information before the call. 4. Have a strong perspective on how you can help. 5. Engage in meaningful business conversations. 📈 6. Identify all potential stakeholders early on. 🔍 7. Help the customer make a confident yes or no decision to proceed to the next call, if they are not sure give them an easy out and let them sell the next call to you. 🔥 p.s. If you’re an Account Executive looking to fill your pipeline and exceed quota in 90 days or less, then send me a DM saying "90". #SalesTips #AccountExecutive #DiscoveryCalls #B2BSales #SalesExcellence

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Hello SDRs - a good old hokeyism that I enjoy is "you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". What this saying is missing is how you choose to drink is up to you, but you need to drink. Own your process. Want to know more about the product/market, (yes i think this helps sdrs), go to your Sales engineering team. Want to learn more about top SDRs across all industries, find a mentor. So many of us are all to willing to help, as we've been in your shoes before. Lastly, own your persona learning. GPT tools make what use to be an exhausting and drawn out, possibly innacurate process, and turns it into minutes not hours. It's Wednesday, time to make the rest of the week awesome. #sdr #hokeyism

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SaaS salespeople: You can make a lot of progress just by knowing what not to do. Here are 21 mistakes to avoid in SaaS sales to stop losing deals this month: 1. Only working with one contact at a company (single-threaded) 2. Failing to confirm the budget 3. Failing to confirm the timeline 4. Avoiding risk in your deals instead of managing it 5. Negotiating price too early 6. Getting overly optimistic without reason (happy ears) 7. Not celebrating your wins 8. Negotiating before being the preferred vendor 9. Negotiating with someone who can’t say yes 10. Ignoring your July and Q3 pipeline 11. Not starting the legal review early enough 12. Not starting the security review early enough 13. Slowing down your prospecting efforts 14. Neglecting exercise and your health 15. Not having firm check-ins scheduled with your champion 16. Sending paperwork without asking, “What happens next?” 17. Failing to confirm that all key decision-makers are on board 18. Not pushing hard enough to close deals on time 19. Pushing too hard to close deals, risking the relationship 20. Offering fake end-of-month discounts 21. Losing touch with the customer after the deal closes Avoid the things that can kill your deals. It’s just as important as chasing success. Btw, my partner Steph and I have spent over 300 hours creating a 5-step guide with free templates to help founders and sales professionals improve their sales by attracting ideal clients. If you’d like the free guide, feel free to DM us!

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If you detect your Outbound SDRs are not being relevant enough to book meetings, it means: 1️⃣ Either they are not completing enough activities / touches. 2️⃣ Their pitch / cold emails are not being relevant enough. If it is the later, the fault is on you SDR Manager / Director. I cannot recall how many times I have said that Outbound SDRs need to be trained on business acumen. This is an easy to follow framework to get them up to speed and improve their business acumen: 🔎 Identify only your top 3 ICPs (buyer persona and industry). 🤖 Go on ChatGPT and write something like: “𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘋𝘙 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘈𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘛𝘰𝘱 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰, 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘋𝘙 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯.” 📧 Send that to your SDRs and practice in a few mock calls. #b2bsales

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Good vs bad hiring processes for SDRs/BDRs ✅ ❌ Which one do you think attracts the best talent? A - gives feedback after each stage B - doesn't give feedback to candidates at all A - let candidates know the salary range and keep to a small variance b - doesn't make the salary clear in the job description and has a large range A - 2-4 stage process and includes a task/role play B - 5-8 stage process that feels like a repetitive interrogation A - offers as soon as they have the right person B - waits a few days/even weeks and keeps the candidate in the dark It doesn't take much to provide a great candidate experience. But people remember how you made them feel. #sales #salescareers #hiring #interviews P.S. Have you had a good/bad interview experience before?

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Potential Revenue Increase from Paywall A/B Testing 1️⃣ Conversion Rate Improvement: Paywall A/B testing can lead to substantial improvements in conversion rates. For instance, it’s not uncommon for well-executed A/B tests to increase conversion rates by 20-50%. If your app currently converts 2% of free users to paid users, even a modest increase to 3% can represent a 50% boost in subscription revenue. 2️⃣ Revenue Uplift Examples: 🔸 Small App: For an app with 10,000 monthly active users (MAUs), where the average subscription price is $10/month, a 1% increase in conversion rate (from 2% to 3%) could mean an additional $1,000/month, or $12,000/year. 🔸 Medium App: For an app with 100,000 MAUs, the same 1% increase in conversion rate could result in an additional $10,000/month, or $120,000/year. 🔸 Large App: For an app with 1,000,000 MAUs, this could translate to an additional $100,000/month, or $1.2 million/year. Case Studies and Real-World Examples 🔸 Example 1: Magazine App: A popular digital magazine app conducted A/B testing on their paywall and discovered that offering a limited-time discount increased their conversion rates by 35%. This change led to an additional $500,000 in annual revenue. 🔸 Example 2: Fitness App: A fitness app tested different paywall designs and messaging, resulting in a 25% increase in conversions. This improvement translated into $200,000 in additional annual revenue for the app. How Adapty.io Enhances Paywall A/B Testing Adapty.io simplifies the process of setting up and analyzing A/B tests, making it easier to achieve these revenue gains: ✅ Real-Time Analytics: Monitor the performance of your paywall variations in real-time to quickly identify winning strategies. ✅ User Segmentation: Tailor your paywall tests to specific user segments to understand what works best for different groups. ✅ Iterative Testing: Continuously refine your paywall based on data-driven insights, ensuring ongoing optimization and revenue growth.

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Not sure if I agree with Joel Graber's take here. If you can't hire a junior SDR, that likely means your org is lacking some serious enablement processes... Yes the SDR workload has changed a lot over the years. But the core function remains the same: Understand the product value, research and find relevant targets, create engaging outbound to capture those leads. So if your junior SDRs aren't getting it, you likely jumped the gun on: -Clarifying ICP -Creating persona based messaging -Clearly defined UVPs against competitors (Battlecards) -Good discovery format -Proven frameworks and coaching That said, I don't believe your entire SDR team should consist of junior reps. You need the influence of 1-2 seasoned SDRs to get the balance right. But you can't expect junior, or even senior reps for that matter, to answer all the above problems for you. Your VP of Sales exists to think through these problems before you scale not while you scale. But as always, I'm happy to be told I'm wrong. Let me know what you think.

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Cold email is easy. You just have to: - Define your ideal customer / ICP - Have a clean lead list - Explain clearly what you offer / what the product does - Specify the features that solve their problem - Avoid vague language and word salads - Be clear, relevant, and valuable - Make promises you can keep - Make your content scannable - Have a strong call to action - Monitor your inbox - Manage engagement metrics - Warm your sending accounts - Throttling your sending pace - Set up secondary sending domains - Create email authentication protocols - Optimize sender and domain reputation - Implement a consistent sending schedule Did I miss anything? 🤔 🦜

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Being an SDR is not easy in 2024. Everyone is claiming they have the best template, best strategy, Replies are down, at least that's what everyone is claiming. You are probably doubting yourself. Look beyond. They are probably selling to a different industry, hell you dont even know if the results are real. Stop doubting yourself, just stop. You came this far and you will go far. You are not getting coached. Most managers either don't know how to coach or don't have time. Blame all you want that your company isn't training you, take responsibility. Find a mentor or Hang out with the top players anywhere in the world, ask your company for a training budget or find a company which will invest in you. What's your tip for SDRs who are struggling in 2024? School of SDR #sales #sdr

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Stop letting junior SDRs reach out to your C-Suites. Buyers don’t want to talk to salespeople anymore. They want trusted advisors. Domain experts.  Yet, for some reason, 99% of sales teams completely ignore this fact and let their junior SDRs reach out to C-suites — then they sit back and wonder why their outbound doesn’t work. The WHO factor is more important today than ever before. Here’s what it means moving forward: 1. Trusted Advisors vs. SDRs: Would you take medical advice from a first-year med student? Probably not. In the same vein, expecting a junior SDR to convince a C-suite executive is a flawed strategy. Buyers today want insights from those seeped in the industry, not those reading off a script. 2. The New-Age SDR: These SDRs have authority in their field and are the ultimate subject matter experts. They possess a highly relevant audience of ICP and excel in content creation and audience engagement. They understand the nuances and pains of the prospects and create value-driven conversations, not just touchpoints. 3. Team-Selling is a Necessity: If a CFO checked your website, why in the world would you let your SDR reach out? Facilitate outbound requests to your CFO and ask them to personally connect with the prospect from their profile. It’s about leveraging the right person at the right time to build trust and relevance. 4. Signal-Based Selling: Your outreach should be driven by real-time data and intent signals. Spot the triggers: website visits, content downloads, recent funding, etc. Engage with the right person, when the timing is perfect, with the right message from the right person. This isn’t about volume; it’s about precision. TAKEAWAY: In this new era, it's not about how many emails you send, but WHO is sending them and WHY. In 2024, the most successful companies will have GTM teams that look more like consulting firms than old-school sales orgs. The next-gen of successful sales orgs will be the ones that evolve beyond the old playbooks and focus on trust, relevance, and the power of human connection. The future isn’t just lean. It’s personal.

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Should you contract an outbound sales agency? A question I discussed with many clients at the moment. The problem: "Scaling an internal outbound team is hard." Why: - Need a lot of € to build team - Requires a good sales coach (especially if cold calling) - High attrition with sales reps Additional factor when outsourcing makes sense: - Reducing founder led sales - Entering a new market - Seasonal sales campaign - Time to action is critical - Access to tools and tech (relevant for early stage tech) But there are also reasons when not to outsource: - You sell a process not a product - Service/solution is to complex - Loss of direct control - Reputational risks Now, I am a fan of multi-threading. And I believe in cold calling. There are times and industry where AI based solution with just LinkedIn and Email can do wonders - especially if combined with intent. But certain industries still require cold calls as an additional channel. Now let's do some ROI calculation. Let's assume we have a small BDR team in Western Europe. Numbers are per month. - 3 BDR OTE €15,000 - BDR Manager OTE €7,500 = Total 22,500 compensation + 20% overhead (tax, tools, admin etc) == €27,000 Individual target 10, team of 3 = 30 Cost per meeting = €900 There are rather optimistic numbers. Getting to 10 meetings is hard! Some agencies, I know off would charge €600-€1,000. Or the retainer in a similar range. When it comes to pure cost then the agency is in most cases the better option, assuming they can deliver the promised meetings. I would not recommend to do a simple ROI calculation. Rather take it as an input but consider also the non-tangible downsides described above. My recommendation is always to do to a test in a market. The cost for a 3 month test are minor compared to hiring a new person. Sales leaders - what is your view? RevOps - what experiments have you run?

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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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Companies: “We have a conversion problem” Plus, they also have: - One payment method (Card entry). - A non branded payment page. - No early payment options. They then question: - Why drop off rates increase. - Why customers hesitate. - Why confidence fades at checkout. Stop thinking one size fits all. And start investing in user experience and payment flexibility. ----------------------- Ps. The success rate of your conversion depends on how well you understand your customers needs and their buying behaviour.

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CEO's Sales Thoughts Are Different From The SDRs One. Things become terrible when not communicated properly. In my last job, We used to have a weekly update meeting with the CEO and everyone in my team used to share ideas and some random stats that didn't make any sense. They never talked about the main thing which was process improvement and numbers. Conversations with the CEO were different when we were in the conference room but when we came out of the conference room, everyone including my manager used to complain about a lot of abnormal sh*t and the CEO's sales agenda. Now, I understood. The communication gap between the sales team and the senior leadership caused the failure to achieve the targets. I know there are a couple of things that can be right from the CEO's perspective but maybe they are wrong from the sales rep's point of view and vice versa. The only way to fix this is, to allow everyone in the team to talk about the failed stuff. Let them be open about the problems they are facing. Don't make them guilty of what they have done wrong. This is based on my experience. Hope you like it. #sales #salesteam #salesrep #salesdevelopment

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