Bryant Krieger

To all SDRs or anyone entering B2B sales, read this post to avoid falling into common traps. 1. The most successful AEs I have met were the best SDRs. 2. SDRs who didn’t excel in the role and are now AEs are still struggling to generate their own pipeline. 3. AEs who skipped the SDR role, often due to an MBA or strong interview skills, fear switching jobs and roles without inbound leads. They’ve never faced the grind of building a pipeline from scratch, filled with rejections. 4. AEs who have never been an SDR majorly rely on their SDRs or Inbound leads from marketing to help them build pipeline and if any Quarter they don't get inbound or enough meetings from SDRs they sh** in their pants. 5. When these AEs become managers, they often question their team—"Where are the numbers?" or "Why isn’t there a pipeline?"—instead of guiding them on building it. Lacking experience in pipeline generation, they fail to lead by example and eventually lose the respect of their team. Learn the art and science of being an SDR and excel at this job at any cost, you will never have to look back or depend on anyone for pipeline EVER. Prospecting and Generating Pipelines is fundamental to Sales whether you are an SDR, AE, Sr Manager, or VP if you don't know how to do OUTBOUND you will continuously live a sales life of fear and anxiety. So SDRs ask yourselves do you want to be such AE and Managers in the future who depend on others to determine their performance and faith or would you like to own your job? #sales #prospecting #outbound #pipeline #sdr #ae #b2b #saas

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SaaS leaders tell me the same thing: "We need more leads, but good ones." That's where WMAmerica comes in. We don't do fluff. We do results. When I joined, my mission was simple: help SaaS companies grow fast. Not just any leads, but the right ones. Take one client: They had product-market fit but zero lead flow. In 3 months, we: 1. Boosted qualified leads by 60% 2. Closed 5 new major clients 3. Got them scaling like never before Another founder? Sick of bad leads. We stepped up and: 1. Booked 30+ meetings with perfect prospects in a quarter 2. Grew their revenue by 40% Lead gen is tough, but with the right partner, it's a game-changer. Ready to see results? Let's talk.

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Sales folks especially SDRs and AEs I will tell you a hack about how to achieve more in less time ↓ "Start blocking your calendar thoughtfully and strategically every single day" Working out of whims & fancies and adhocism will not get you the desired result you aspire to achieve. You need to have a plan for your day even before starting the day. Every time you block your calendar make sure you block it for a single activity and you define what output you want to achieve out of this activity. Have a time block for at least Prospecting, Identifying new accounts, and Follow-ups on a daily basis, the rest you can block based on your roles and KRAs. Remember: "You cannot control time but you can surely control how you want to spend the time"

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🤯 “Ramping up SDRs, AEs and CS people  takes us no less than 6 months.” 💣 🙈 This is what I heard on a recent demo from  a CRO of a rapidly scaling tech business. 📈 Time to efficiency is a struggle Heads of Sales Enablement and Customer Success are going through across their commercially-driven teams… 📖 At the moment, they expect internal  sales and CS decks, call recordings,  business pitches, etc. should do the job. 🙄 But it doesn’t! 🗓️ They're wasting too much time for people to start performing, closing deals, effectively onboarding customers, reducing churn & upselling… ❌ Sometimes, they still don’t perform... And then guess what? Off leaders go through to recruiting mode again starting from ground 0. 🎯 Hence the need for action-based learning.  Not just passively reading through PDFs  and listening to call recordings. 👨‍💻 Below are some use cases we see our customers here at UJJI AI ✨ leveraging our tech for: 🔸 Business-specific lead gen and outbound 🔸 Pitching quick and easy over the phone 🔸 Delivering demos and answering queries 🔸 Effectively onboarding new customers 🔸 Efficiently implementing product features 🔸 Practising great customer support 🔸 Guiding customers to upselling 🚀 Ultimately, growing tech businesses comes down to predictable new business development, high customer retention and low churn. 💬 So, DM me if you want to see examples  of AI-powered. easy to build and consume knowledge equipping experiences. 👇 Anything to add to this, Sales and CS leaders? Gautam Rishi Rohan Dickinson George Heron Russell Mitchell Callum Hartley Jon Teale James Dixon Seán Colfer Caroline L. Guy Rubin Jake Carter David Muscat Arun Raveendran Steve Eveleigh Ayo Kukoyi,

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Your Founding AE Will Make or Break Your Business—Ignoring Their Product-Market Fit Feedback? That’s a Fast Track to Failure Hiring a founding AE isn’t just about “filling a role”—it’s a high-stakes decision that can make or break your company. Think of them as your lifeline to the market. They’re not just selling; they’re the ones gathering real-time feedback on your Product-Market Fit (PMF), and ignoring their insights is like throwing away a roadmap to success. Here’s why their feedback isn’t optional—it’s critical: - They Know the Brutal Truth About Your Product - They’ll Define Success, Whether You Like It or Not - Scaling Without Their Insights? Good Luck - Competitive Intelligence You Can’t Afford to Ignore - Their Wins Validate Your Business Model The Harsh Truth: Ignoring Your Founding AE Is Self-Sabotage Your founding AE isn’t “just” a salesperson; they’re your closest connection to the market. Ignoring their insights on PMF is actively sabotaging your potential. Let their feedback guide you—it could be the difference between sustainable growth and an expensive lesson in what not to do.

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The best "cheat codes" every AE should know: 1. 1:1s with your boss. Approach them strategically. Proactively share format and content. Biggest deals you need support on. Challenges you need help with. Forecast for the month, quarter, etc. Wins. 2. Perception. Performance is your fire. How you're perceived internally (aka your brand) is the water or gas that gets dumped on your fire. Attitude, how you show up, handle change, communicate, matters. Hold yourself to a high bar. Two levels above where you're currently at. 3. Document everything. Take the time to write down your own sales playbook. Every strategy, process and template you have. Store it on your personal computer. The value of this over time is immeasurable. I can't state this enough. 4. Problems are a good thing. Anytime there's a problem that's an opportunity to solve it, improve it, and add value. Some of the biggest opportunities I've gotten in my career came because I dove head first into problems and helped move the business forward. Startups always have problems. Don't be the negative person. 5. Time management. Block Monday mornings every week. Don't go to meetings if they're not worth your time. Most things can be solved async. Make meetings 15 to 20 mins. Sometimes you need a whole week of no meetings to catch up, get organized and do deep work. Don't feel bad for saying no to people. They'll understand. 6. External coaching. Up level by listening to podcasts, taking courses and building an external network. Don't rely on your company for everything. Even if they're doing a great job get the perspectives and strategies of other people for a significant edge. What would you add to this list? - Mike G 👉 Join 5,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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Hey sales people, be careful with ‘Gong’ advice. Because you don’t work for Gong. Gong had 6 funding rounds. Each time millions of people heard about Gong. Branding Familiarity Your company probably doesn’t have that level of awareness. When Gong sales people engage most decision makers already know what they’re calling about. People with in the prospect have probably already had a discussion about Gong. Gong is a great company with great people. But the branding makes it a lot easier to sell so take the advice with a grain of salt. Have a great Friday! #sales #ifurnotgong

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CROs and sales enablement leaders want fast, repeatable, and reportable ways to deliver sales knowledge to sellers whenever they need it. BUT:  1. Sales training doesn’t help do this fast enough (it takes 3+ months for the average seller to ramp up, and they will continue to need SE support to answer everyday buyer questions after that) 2. SE bandwidth is limited and hiring more SEs to solve this problem is an extremely expensive solution To combat this at scale, Luke Martin, Senior Manager, Revenue Enablement Infrastructure Operations at ZoomInfo decided to innovate with AI – where every seller could ask AI a sales question, and it would answer it accurately and phrased the same way an SE would. Curious to know how that journey went? Join us for our webinar, 𝗡𝗼 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀: 𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼 𝗚𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻 𝗨𝗻𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝟵 𝗔𝗠 𝗣𝗧, 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟭 where we'll be discussing: ✨ The challenges Luke and many other sales/enablement leaders are facing today ✨ Separating gimmicky “AI software” from AI products and solutions that actually work ✨ Scaling AI adoption across your sales organization while keeping security, data privacy, and costs in mind Link to register 👇 https://lnkd.in/ecEBPG_t #CRO #Sales_enablement_leaders

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"Should we outsource SDRs?" No, with rare exceptions. There's a reason why customer churn is high at most of the outsourced SDR shops. Outbound isn't as easy as paying $3-5k / month for a part-time SDR. And then expecting to see high-quality opportunities in 30-60 days. I've NEVER worked with a client that was happy with their SDR agency. - Poor show rates to meetings - Terrible expectation setting with handoff - Low-quality meetings with non-decision makers - Few, if any, closed/won deals But to be fair—it isn't always the SDR agency's fault. Many of their clients expect them to be miracle workers. An outbound-led sales motion is very different from an inbound-led sales motion. If your AEs are used to meeting with inbound leads, they must be taught how to close outbound leads. Prospects will likely not be problem-aware, there isn't a budget in place, and they probably won't have brand awareness. Do not hire an SDR agency if: ⛔️ You've never done outbound before as an org. ⛔️ You sell enterprise ⛔️ You're breaking into new industries ⛔️ You haven't figured out your messaging or value drivers ⛔️ Your AEs aren't self-sourcing and doing their own outbound No outsider will ever understand your customers as well as you do. And it's only a bandaid to build a sales culture that doesn't understand how to excel at outbound. It might make sense to work with an agency if: ✅ You know outbound works, but need help scaling it ✅ You've mastered messaging and value drivers ✅ Your AEs know how to close outbound deals ~~~ Agree or disagree? #sales

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Tired of losing hard-earned deals? Solve for Revenue Leak. In Clari’s 2024 Revenue Leak Report, RevOps leaders said leak happens at every stage of the funnel. - Creating: Poor and slow upsell pipeline tracking - Converting: Unsure where pipeline is dropping off - Closing: Slipped deals Don’t let Revenue Leak drag down another quarter – or another year. Download the Revenue Leak Report for more: https://lnkd.in/g9gnGrdz  

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35-50% of b2b buyers choose the vendor that is fastest to respond. But, most vendors are still forcing buyers to: Fill out a form Wait for a response  Talk to an SDR So, It can take buyers weeks to: See a product demo Learn about pricing Talk to subject matter experts If buyers choose the vendor that is fastest to respond… Why are we still forcing buyers to jump through so many hoops? *(Source: InsideSales.com)

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Want to drive more expansion? Here's the playbook I learned at Salesforce - Find gaps with customers - Create offers to address gaps - Market this to your expansion list - Introduce offer in sales and CS mtgs - Lay the groundwork and spark interest - Start sales conversations with stakeholders - Close Expansion Opportunities and grow Accts! Whitespace is a key way to find those gaps. 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘 - What products does each customer have? - What products does each customer NOT have? - Which products have you yet to present to them? *This is pretty basic but so often not executed well! 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘 - Which key stakeholders do you know? - Which key stakeholders do you NOT know? - Where can you open up new key relationships? 𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗔𝗣 - Where do these overlap? - You can sell a new product to an old contact - You can sell more current product to a new contact - But man is it easier to sell new products to new contacts Let me share some examples from my days at Salesforce: - VPs of Sales bought Salesforce (Sales Cloud) - VPs of Service/COOs bought Service Cloud - CMOs bought Pardot or Marketing Cloud - CFOs bought more licenses at discounts We had a different play for each product and each stakeholder. It wasn't this cut and dry though. Sometimes VPs of Sales bought Service Cloud or Marketing Cloud. CFOs often wanted the best contract terms and were my bread and butter for expansion, but it wasn't always them driving this. Most often, though, our relationship started with the VP of Sales who bought Sales Cloud and didn't really care about anything else we had to sell. This playbook is how Salesforce "landed and expanded" accounts and doubled spend for the average customer within 12 months of the initial purchase when I was there. More details in the 📰 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗹𝘆 📰 https://lnkd.in/ezX9iMjr ✌️

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Scaling isn’t about hiring more people. PEOPLE DON’T CREATE DEMAND. Sure, adding headcount looks like growth on paper. But without demand, they’re just added costs—not revenue drivers. Let’s think about this. How many of your reps are consistently hitting quota? Are you maximizing revenue per FTE? What’s happening with activity levels, pipeline health, win rates, and conversion rates? Is there room to optimize? And what about ACV and ARPU? Are you leaving money on the table? Could better automation, smarter AI, or streamlined processes shorten sales cycles? Is your tech stack doing its job, or just adding complexity? (Believe me, it happens). Can smaller customers self-serve via PLG? Is that even a possibility? How are your SDR-to-AE ratios? Is Customer Success stepping in early enough, or just post-sale? Please, please, please: answer those questions before you even think about adding headcount. But scaling isn’t just about zooming into the details. It’s also about stepping back to see the bigger picture. How’s your LTV:CAC ratio? Are your pricing and packaging strategies protecting margins—or eroding them? Is churn under control? How’s NRR? GRR? Are you capitalizing on upsells and cross-sells? Again, how much can you gain before adding costs? Then there’s the market. I know, I know, it's getting longer. But it's critical (and sometimes ignored). Are you nearing saturation? Is there room to grow, or is it time to explore new verticals or product lines? And let’s come back to demand. Really? Really. People don’t create it (yes, I’ve said it before—and spoiler alert—you’ll hear me say it again). Can your inbound-outbound engine scale? Is inbound strong enough to support growth, or are you overly reliant on outbound? Outbound isn’t getting any easier. Without the right balance, more reps just add noise—not results. Are you adding quality behind quantity at the top of the funnel? Is your messaging resonating with ICPs? Are marketing and sales truly aligned to convert intent into revenue? If you’re going upmarket, is your product-market fit proven? Is the whole company ready—not just GTM, but Product, Dev, and Ops? Scaling isn’t about throwing people at the problem. It’s about building a machine that works—and works well. Clear, repeatable processes. A documented, applied enablement strategy. Teams trained and empowered with the right tools and data. And the most important piece of the puzzle: people. They are (by far) your most important asset—but only if they’re set up for success. Diversity, creativity, and motivation within your team is what really drive results. Scaling isn’t just a numbers game; it’s a people game. Are you creating an environment where your team thrives? Beyond the slogan, are you? Fix what’s broken. Optimize what’s working. Empower your people. Then scale. Because scaling isn’t about more—it’s about better.

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When I built the CS and AM teams at G2, they were out of necessity. Our customer success arc looked like many growing startups: 1) The sales motion is starting to work and people are coming up on their annual renewals. 2) AEs are fielding too many customer questions so they dont have enough time to hunt. 3) Solution: hire someone from the outside or more likely, promote a rep or BDR from within to take over managing accounts. This works well because they already know the product and can provide value from day 1. 4) You put in processes, metrics, and tracking because there is no rhyme or reason to the plays being run and the tactics used to provide value to your clients. 5) You start to scale the team by hiring more CSMs to manage more accounts. 6) Specialization is necessary so you build territories and divvy up accounts based on certain criteria (account size, location, industry, etc.). 7) There comes a time where it's clear that the sales leader can't manage both a growing sales team and a growing CS team - you hire a CS leader. 8) Reality sets in as the unit economics don't fare well for having a full-time CSM (non-quota carrying) on smaller, SMB accounts. 9) You implement a support function to field general questions and low hanging fruit so as to free up the time of the CSMs to work on more strategic conversations with larger accounts. 10) Back to unit economics - you recognize that small/mid-sized accounts should have quota carrying reps on them > you flip to the AM model (except for some of the enterprise accounts where it still makes sense to have an AE and CSM servicing the very high spend customers). #10 is where I've been fielding a lot of questions lately. How do we know its time to flip to an AM model? What are the pitfalls of doing it? How can you make the business case that this is the right move? Ultimately everything will come back to profitability and unfortunately, with dropping retention rates, unless you have a very expensive product, you must adapt to an AM format. That means you will need to consider: change management, territory management, who will run the new teams, how you will get organizational buy-in, and the ramifications to the bottom line. Moving to this model is no small feat so taking time to do it correctly is imperative.

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SDR Leaders: “I statements” are killing your reps! Are your SDRs inadvertently making conversations about themselves? It's time to shift the focus. 🚫 "I think it would be a good idea for you to speak with one of my AEs..." 🚫 "I would love to show you our platform..." These "I" statements put your company and SDR first. They scream, "This is how I get paid!" Let's flip the script. The Golden Rule of SDR Conversations: -It's never about the SDR. -It's never about your company. -It's always about the prospect and their pain points. Action Steps for SDR Leaders: -Stomp out "I" statements during role-plays -Train SDRs to disconnect from the outcome (h/t Josh Braun ) -Emphasize: Not every prospect is a fit, and that's OK Remember, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Coach your SDRs to focus on understanding the prospect's needs first. If there's no fit, move on gracefully. By making this shift, your SDRs will build better relationships, have more meaningful conversations, and ultimately, drive better results. But I could be wrong 😑

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SALES, SALES, SALES - Let's meet & work together for the rest of your sales career - Account Executive Opening$ 💘 Revenue Tool - SaaS Series B $125- $150k base $1m- $1.2m quota $7k- $500k deal size selling into #saas #sales #gtm teams actual inbound $$ growing their sales team from 5-12 SDR support (one on one for now) for #startup rep$ only 💘 Direct to Healthcare Tool - SaaS Series B $900k quota Some SDR support ideal candidate has worked with #insurance and has #saas background 💘 Manufacturing ERP Account Executive & Implementation Consulting org $95-$110k base. $200k++ OTE $200k+ deal size Must MUST MUST have sold #erp to manufacturing companies this is NOT a platform, or a RESELLER, this is a CONSULTING ORG that sources, refines fit and works with the customer throughout a very long up to 2 year implementation process - you will be the #csm #am NO COLD CALLING OR SALES EMAILS you will work DIRECT with JUST the founder open to seeing #sdrs who have sold #erp to manufacturers who want to get out of software, and into consulting - SDR Opening$$ 💘 Direct to Healthcare Tool - SaaS Series B 10+ qualified attended meeting a month selling into #hr mostly within #nonprofits and #homehealthcare $55-$65k base, up to $200+ per qualified, attended meeting do not contact me if you aren't going to take my coaching seriously :) cold call me 10x in a row text me send me a blind invite do what you got to do <3 #sales #salesrecruiter #gtmsales #founderledsales #saleshiring #salesjobs

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How to know if you have a good comp plan? Ask your GTM team what type of revenue it's motivating them to close, and why. The revenue that earns a seller the highest commission rate should be the revenue that is best for the business. "I earn the highest commission rate on 3-year contracts in the pharmaceutical industry because we're trying to drive long-term relationships in pharma." If your marketer/BDR/AE/AM can't give you that sentence, your comp plan isn't driving their performance in real-time. And at that point, your comp plan isn't doing its job.

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We see 300 candidates before hiring a sales rep... And you all know the kind of reps we've had at Apex Revenue and TitanX (formerly Phone Ready Leads®) 2800-3500 dials per month per rep 650-800 connects per month per rep (thanks TitanX (formerly Phone Ready Leads®) 130-180 activated leads per month per rep 30-55 meetings per month per rep on phone only Here is our hiring process simplified: - Apply (this is either through a job ad or through a linkedin post) - Must cold call the hiring manager after that - We reject every single candidate NO MATTER how good they are. Why? I want to see how they handle rejection. If they fold like a lawn chair. Bye. If they push back or don't take 'no' as an answer we move them on. - Trial by fire day (session 1) -- Script and message handed to them. Role Play with hiring manager. Role Play with another rep on the team. Get coaching. See how they apply it. - Trial by fire day (session 2) -- Hit the phones with actual prospects. Load them up in FrontSpin, feed them scored data through TitanX (formerly Phone Ready Leads®) so they can be in a conversation within 2 minutes, use the script, see how it goes. Ask them how they feel, ask them what they didn't like, take some coaching... wash, rinse, repeat. Are they taking coaching? Are they getting better? - Culture call -- they meet with the other reps on the team to see if they fit. The candidate could rush everything but if the team rejects them, we reject them. They know what is required by their peers. - Offer call When we were running Apex, 1 single SDR was doing the output of 8-10 reps. The entire time we ran Apex we had 1 (yes, only 1) rep quit and he quit in his first week. Now, nearly every single one of the reps that we had at Apex before we pushed all of our eggs in the titanX basket are AEs, Revops leaders, #1 performers, or running their own company. Why won't most companies do this? They won't make someone cold call them They won't reject every candidate no matter what They won't role play They won't force someone to make cold calls in the bullpen in front of you They don't trust their other reps to vet the candidate... trust your team. They know what it takes.

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