Hannah Rafter

🎉 Proud moment for us at OneAdvanced! 🚀 We're making real strides in tackling the gender pay gap. Check out our latest Diversity Pay Gap Report 2023 at the link below. 👏 #progress #DEI #genderpaygap 🌈

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We want our community to feel supported but, most importantly, listened to. 👋 Reflecting on how lonely the job hunt can be, everything we do at Pollen is aimed at preventing that isolation for everyone in our community. The Pollen Social is designed for those at the start of their careers, who might be uncertain about their next steps or navigating the unpredictable job market, to connect with others in similar situations and with some great individuals who are further in their career journey. If this sounds like something you'd enjoy, please register your interest using the link in the comments. 👀 #careers #entrylevel #graduatecareers

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I posted previously on when to hire your first AEs, and what to look for. So presuming you’ve done this and have a few AEs in the role, how do you assess whether these AEs are doing well? A few founders I’ve spoken with have mentioned this challenge - especially because, very early on, there is so much noise amidst the signal of what is working. In this context I think it’s critical to consider input and output metrics separately. ✅ Output metrics - These are the metrics you are ultimately trying to deliver as a business. This includes things like ARR, number of new logos, maybe even usage or number of DAUs, WAUs, MAUs, etc. While these metrics are influence-able via behaviors, they are the dependent variable. You can’t just tell your early AEs to triple ARR when you're learning all about your market and target buyers; that’s not an effective management strategy. ▶ Input metrics - The activities which (presumably) drive the output metrics. This includes things like number of email sequences sent, number of calls made, number of meetings held, even number of hours spent in the office (though I do not recommend tracking that one). A pattern I’ve observed is that many early-stage founders dramatically under-goal input metrics early on. This may be because they have not run sales teams before, or because they are “anchoring” to a very different phase of the company. When you have new salespeople for the first time, every incremental metric feels like gravy; the CEO has gone from no one caring about her product, to doing five pitch meetings a week, so it can feel like stratospheric growth - which in a way, it is, on a percentage basis. But your basis for comparison should not be the zero meetings per week that you held previously, but the twenty five meetings per week you need in order to close x deals per month, at z ACV. So when in doubt, triple your input metric goal. You held 20 discovery meetings last month? Let’s do 60 next month! That said, it’s important not to overly goal the very leading indicator input metrics - for instance, the number of emails sent. Since you have hired smart, scrappy, malleable early AEs, you want them to think creatively about how to drive the earlier part of the funnel - meetings held - and that may involve fewer, more thoughtful emails, calls, or LinkedIn messages. An AE who sends 10 emails to land 2 meetings is much more effective than one who sends 100 emails to land 2 meetings; the latter is polluting your lead pool with less relevant outbound content; the former is learning how exactly to break through to prospects, and these learnings should be replicated throughout the team. You’ll learn so quickly with audacious input metrics - about the messaging and channels which work best, and critically, which AEs have more grit, hustle, and creativity in securing those meetings.

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🌐LASTING PERMANENCE OF DIGITAL COMMUNITIES✍️ A thought I had the other day whilst reflecting on my time at DriveTribe, launching a viral blog with over a million views & fostering a tight-knit online community under my brand “AutoTrending”: “How do I still feel so connected to a platform that’s been dissolved for nearly 4 years?” It’s obviously not the platform itself that I remain in touch with - but rather the community. Although I did not make the mass exodus as many automotive journalists did to platforms like Shifting Lanes, Jalopnik, and Redline Reviews, I do occasionally find time to share my never-ending thoughts on automotive industry, culture & technology. From time to time, I’ll make a post on my Instagram story, post on X, and most often, leave comments myself in spaces frequented by the same folks I’ve known digitally since my days as a true creator. ➡️ Follow me @claytonwholmes on all platforms It’s a testament to how strong & resilient the community is to have lost such a centralized social hub yet remain connected through personal networks. I have plenty of friends who were former followers, contributors, and auto enthusiasts on my DriveTribe blog. Although it’s not the same, I still appreciate the community as it will forever be cemented in my digital footprint - after all I owe them to my success as a writer. Without them, there would have been no blog, no book, and the passion for cars may not have been the same. DriveTribe may be dead, but it’s community is alive and well🤞🤝 What communities are you thankful for? Have any transformed your life in a similar or different way? P.S. if you still want to read my content, it’s all available for free download, archived on my website. My book is also still listed for sale, links all over my profile📚

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I'll say this a thousand times over – businesses need to focus on retention - the why part might be cleared but the the what and how still remains uncertain. Who's is teaching all this? Not the B-schools, Not the tech schools, Definitely not the ad schools. It's too niche to be worth the ed-tech platforms to commit to! But this is insanely valuable. That's why SORM RisE – Mastery in Retention. Step into 8 immersive virtual sessions with speakers curated from the best of consumer tech ecosystem: Real Stories Real Problems Real Solutions Real ROI Real Business Impact A Certified Retention Professional is in tremendous demand, trust me. Join this cohort based course. It's nothing like you've ever attended before. #retentioncareers #retentionjobs

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Only 1 week to go until {unscripted} London! The response from the tech community has been nothing short of amazing... 400+ people have already registered to attend the event on 24th September. If you haven’t signed up yet, now’s your chance—seats are filling up fast! Highlights include: - Talks from practitioners at leading organisations such as Petrut (Pete) I. at JPMorganChase, Anthony Phillips & Andrew Greenough at Lloyds Banking Group - Customer-focused panel discussions on the latest trends featuring speakers from Booking.com, Citi, Vodafone, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Hargreaves Lansdown and more. - An analyst presentation featuring UK and EMEA insights on software engineering trends from Jen Thomson, IDC - A fireside chat on the future of software engineering between Harness CEO and Founder Jyoti Bansal and Srinivasaa HG at Wipro - Dedicated networking opportunities during the day to meet and discuss key topics with your peers across the software engineering industry. 👉 Register here: https://lnkd.in/ehR-natt #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech #Innovation #UnscriptedConf #SoftwareEngineering #Developers #DeveloperExperience #Cloud #CICD #CloudComputing #CloudNative #Kubernetes #DevOps

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You should always ask "Why?" and as a founder, you absolutely have to ask "Why now?". This was a great way to illustrate why Causely came to be and how Shmuel Kliger and Ellen Rubin chose to take on the challenge of finally relieving teams of the burden of manual troubleshooting. I loved the chat so much and it also led to this... https://lnkd.in/dk9xn33K #AI #Causely #Causality #SRE #DevOps #Kubernetes

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Last week I spoke about all things influencer and UGC on a panel at Fintech Fringe. If you missed it here are a couple of key takeaways from the event: 1. Don’t be afraid to be different- many company’s (especially fintech’s) are afraid to look outside the box when thinking about content and attracting the right customer. Aligning target audiences with an influencer in a different niche can accelerate your sales dramatically. 2. LinkedIn is still an awesome way to get your brand out there. But don’t just stick to the same formats and posts, as the algorithm updates so should your brand (hence the video in this post) 3. Be bold & be genuine- don’t shy away from being a disruptor. Authentic communication allows customers to genuinely connect with your brand. 4. Internal influencers could be the way forward- it takes time but the results could be massive. Eg. At Prograd we went from 7k followers to over 130k in just 3 months by leveraging our internal team! Thanks to Calypso Harland for organising and my fellow panelist Shameer Sachdev Laura Watkins Ian Horne Tom Davies Abba Newbery Sinead Lanyon Mariette Ferreira. Looking forward to the next event!

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I’m a little late to the party, but I feel this is important to talk about. Yesterday, I watched Grace Beverley’s interview with Bloomberg, and it truly struck a chord with me. As someone who shops at TALA, I can confirm that their products are exceptional, and are definitely made by women for women. However, what stood out even more were the startling statistics discussed in the interview: - Only 2% of venture capital funding in the UK goes to women. - The VC funding rate for women decreased from 14% to 10% last year. This is especially alarming considering the findings from the Rose Review, which stated, “£200 billion could be added to the UK economy if women raised at the same rate as men.” It’s no surprise that most, if not all, women I know have felt like the minority in their business, as a woman working within the retail space, I believe it’s crucial to bring these figures to life. We need to create a space for like-minded women in tech, retail, and e-commerce to share their struggles, but more importantly, their achievements. Let’s continue to support each other and advocate for the representation and recognition we deserve. Watch this space for more female centric events 👀 #WomenInBusiness #VentureCapital #Equality #SupportWomen

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We know you love BTS content so here's how we brought our Social Media Trends 2025 launch video to life 🎬✨ Christopher Young, our Senior Video Director who's the mastermind behind this project explains how he used photo-scanning tech to create stills of models in mid-action! If you haven't already, read our report (and enjoy the visuals!) 👉 https://ow.ly/cLU550UhKLu

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🎁 Last week I shared some tips around gifting prospects to help personalise outreach and book meetings (see link in comments). 🎁 I of course had to shout out the amazing team at Reachdesk, who help organise, personalise and dispatch all of the amazing gifts I send to my prospects. This morning, I received a lovely insulated picnic bag, portable speaker and game, alongside a personalised note from the Reachdesk team, thanking me for my tips, wishing me a brilliant summer and good luck for Q3 🤗 It's the perfect example of how personalised gifts can help build champions and maintain strong relationships with clients. People buy from people, so gestures that make you feel heard and appreciated go a long way. Reachdesk engaged with me on LinkedIn, thanked me for my (unsponsored) praise of their brand, and used their product to reiterate the value it drives. 10/10 marketing here! 🏆 So a huge thank you to the team at Reachdesk! I can't wait to use these. Oh, and Toby insisted on helping me open the package... he too is very excited to keep his treats cool when we go on picnics 😁 #corporategifting #personalisation #sales #personalisedoutreach #marketing #prospecting

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Slack gets misused internally by brands but switching our client comms to a dedicated channel has been a winner. We limit the number of people who join. It’s for us to communicate with the Airtable champions and stakeholders. It’s not for broadcasting key info to their whole internal team. That’s not part of our 50%. We use threads, insist on threads, to contain conversations. Most of the time it’s asynchronous updates after a time block or to write a summary of how a block went and what’s up next. The odd chase or request for a meeting comes via there but clients can book time in Calendly. The biggest win is that whether a brand uses it internally, teams or google chat, they’re used to using Slack with other partners they work with. We’re meeting them where they already are. Our job is to get them using Airtable - minimising friction is a priority. Trying to get them to use even Airtable, Trello or whatever to collaborate if they’re not used to it is a distraction. A dedicated Slack channel is an optional service - some just like email and phone calls. The best comms channel is the one that gets used and creates the most clarity and understanding. Yes, a pro slack post, from me. #ecommerce #communication #techstacks

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Community = your people, not your platform. That being said, the platforms you use *do* matter... a lot. (What good is an event if attendees can't find the venue? 😅) Here's a look at how we're keeping the Experts Accelerator cohort members connected across our platforms by embedding Slack in a Glide app via Tightknit.

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I see a lot of things on Linkedin about cold outbound being dead… Whilst I agree that it has definitely changed, It certainly isn't dead. Buyer expectations have changed massively and the methods from 2015-2022 do not work anywhere near as well as they used to. In a world of so much AI generated content hitting inboxes, email domain rule regulations and fighting for buyer attention, is the best way not to cut through the noise and just cold call or send someone a personalised message from research? If you book a meeting through an automated sequence or AI SDR etc, you will still need to do the research required to execute on a good meeting anyway. Why not pick a list of companies / people that you think you can help from your research and call them OR send them a message / video message that is actually for them? Already, you will have differentiated yourself from most of the market.

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I'm not the biggest believer in "old school" offline marketing. It's difficult to measure well the effect and impact to assess ROI. However Notion really took over my tube station on the way to work. So maybe it does work as here I am helping with their brand awareness and word of mouth. 🤔 #marketing #productmanagement #growth

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Klaudia Szwajkosz Your system defines your success: You're right Building system solves bigger problems like: - You don't need to be in front of your Mac all time - You don't need to invest hours in working - You don't need to hustle so hard Rather than if you have a working system It solved problems for you Let me share a story: In starting of my business I was spending hours on: - Ideation - Team meetings - Workflows But The workflows I delegated to one of my key member Stephen Team meetings are not the hard things in which you spend too much time You just have to share what are your goals for this month or week Ideation is hard for: - New content - New strategies Which is draining a lot of time for me So we 5 members sit every Monday for 4 hours together And then discuss ideas Because of this system the progress is exclusive Klaudia Szwajkosz What are your views on this ?

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We know you love BTS content so here's how we brought our Social Media Trends 2025 launch video to life 🎬✨ Christopher Young, our Senior Video Director who's the mastermind behind this project explains how he used photo-scanning tech to create stills of models in mid-action! If you haven't already, read our report (and enjoy the visuals!) 👉 https://ow.ly/yiz550UiOY9

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She is 4 weeks old… Our baby is a month old… It’s four weeks since the Ideation Bootcamp in Aberdeen… Over this time, the Aberdeen Ideation Bootcamp achieved remarkable milestones: 100,000+ impressions across digital channels, boosting visibility without any marketing spend. 45 registrants, with 32 joining us in person. 11 speakers shared their expertise, guiding the participants through their entrepreneurial journey. 10 emails were sent to our community, achieving an impressive 63% open rate. 3 press releases helped amplify our message. The event spanned 3 days, all hosted at 1 venue. It was an incredible opportunity for me to connect with brilliant minds, increase brand visibility, and drive registrations. As the Growth Marketer, I took a strategic approach by nurturing an active community and engaging them through personalised storytelling in our emails, driving conversations on LinkedIn, and speaking at events. This deeper connection made all the difference. But beyond the numbers, what truly moved me was witnessing the transformation of the participants and the emerging businesses they are building. It’s inspiring to see collaborations like the one between Pete Preston and Mária Aliu Biró, and to watch attendees like Ugo Igere from Dundee take their ideas to the next level. For me, the Aberdeen Ideation Bootcamp went beyond marketing campaigns and effective project execution. It was about building a community, fostering real connections, and witnessing entrepreneurs grow in confidence and clarity as they turn their ideas into reality. Photo credit Ridwan Olajide #marketing #projectmanagement #storytelling #leadgeneration #programmemanagement #bootcamp #personalbranding

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