Chris Dougherty

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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Want to win more of your pipeline? 💰 Multi-thread It’s one of the most important things you can do to help drive urgency in your sales cycle Most mid-market deals include an average of 6-10 DMs Enterprise deals can include upwards of 20+ DMs The trap that a lot of sellers can fall into is over-relying on your champion Champions are great - don’t get me wrong It pays dividends to have a champion but it’s 10x when you have 3-4 champions advocating on your behalf Unfortunately most buyers don’t know how to buy so our job as sellers is to educate our buyers on how to effectively buy a solution to solve their problems & it’s actually pretty simple to do Take a look at your closed-won deals - especially your high value deals Who all was involved? Who is currently involved? What was the buying process like? What unexpected obstacles did you have to overcome? Use this as a roadmap to educate your prospects on how to buy I love multi-threading at the end of discovery in driving next steps (and farther along the sales process as well) Here’s a quick talk track you can easily apply when driving next steps with prospects: “Next steps typically involve looping in ABC partners (this could be higher level DMs in their function or other cross-functional leaders who are involved in the buying process for your service/offering) to discuss XYZ priorities (this should be the key initiatives your prospect is looking to solve/improve/attain in implementing your solution). We want to make sure that we’re all in alignment and moving in the right direction together. We usually see that looping in cross-functional partners early helps us to uncover potential roadblocks that we’d need to account for and improves our collaborative efficiency. What does your buying process look like and who is usually involved? Would it make sense for us to go ahead and loop then in on our next call?” Why it works? 1️⃣ You’re educating the buyer on who’s typically involved with the buying/implementation process at other similar organizations 2️⃣ You’re collaboratively driving next steps and confirming the prospects buying process 3️⃣ You’re using multi-threading as a way to add value (helping reduce unforeseen roadblocks and improve efficiency) 4️⃣ You’re reducing the internal selling effort required for your champion (again - adding value) Expand your reach by broadening your decision-making unit through multi-tasking and watch your sales cycle shrink What other tips do you have for multi-threading within your pipeline? Happy selling, friends!

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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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SDR Dashboards - what do you want to see? Gimme your top 3 stats/charts/reports you like to see on YOUR dashboard for pipeline gen. There's the obvious activity levels and SQL/SAL volumes but what else do you like to see.....

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AEs - Ignoring your SDR's growth is costing you thousands in commission. Here's how: For most AEs, their SDR is their number one source of new pipeline. If you want to get ahead and smash your quota, do these five things. They'll take your SDR and pipeline to the next level! 1. 𝐌𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐬: Practice to increase their batting average. 2. 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬: Help them improve their messaging. 3. 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬: Teach them to find the best people to reach out to. 4. 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐀𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Tell senior leaders about their work. 5. 𝐄𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: Cheer them up after those tough days of cold calling. Do these steps a few times each month. You will watch your commissions skyrocket!

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Some of the worst SDRs don't adopt this simple daily habit... 👇 Stay close to the problem. Most SDRs haven't run a sales call. So they have very little context into what their buyers care about, and the nuances around the problem they can solve. So they end up cold calling hundreds of prospects. And basically knowing nothing about what those people actually care about. That's a recipe for not hitting quota. The best SDRs stay close to the problem by: ✅ Watching recordings of AEs running the meetings they set up ✅ Riding shotgun with AEs on sales calls if their org doesn't record them ✅ Reading every single customer story and testimonial ✅ Watching and listening to their customers in interviews ✅ Listening to other rep's cold calls etc Bonus points if you use AI to gather all of these goodies en masse. The best SDRs I've worked with spend the last 30 min. of every business day learning about what their buyers care about. This simple habit will significantly level up your outbound results. What would you add to the list?

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SDRs - Want to sound more confident on your cold calls? Here's a simple way... Remove phrases like "I think" or "I believe" These phrases are weak and make you sound less confident. before: "I think that we can help solve XYZ" after: "we solve XYZ" You're already giving your opinion, you don't need to say it again. Speak with power. People trust confident people. P.S. we share actionable and tactical tips each week in our newsletter. Super example-heavy. Check it out! Worst case scenario you simply unsubscribe :)

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4 tips for running better discovery calls +1 bonus tip +1 one give-away [last line] Discovery isn’t just a stage in the sales process. We've all heard this. Yet, too many reps walk away without truly understanding the pain or the cost of doing nothing. Here’s how to fix that: 1. Start with curiosity. Don’t dive in with generic questions. Instead, open with something thoughtful: → “What made you take this call?” → “When did this challenge first show up for you?” Simple, yet effective. 2. Go deeper. Surface problems aren’t enough. Your job is to dig into the why. → “What’s causing this issue?” → “Who else is impacted?” → “What happens if it doesn’t get fixed?” Get them talking about the ripple effects. 3. Tie pain to metrics. No impacted metrics = no urgency. Find out what matters most to their business: → “Is this impacting win rates, pipeline coverage, or forecast accuracy?” → “What’s the cost of missing those targets?” You’re not just finding pain. You’re quantifying it. 4. Call out the cost of inaction. Paint the picture of staying as is. → “If this isn’t fixed in 6 months, what does that mean for your team?” → “How does this impact hitting revenue goals for the year?” They need to feel the pain now. Bonus tip... 5. Know when to walk away. Not every problem is urgent. If the impact isn’t big enough, qualify out. Save your time. And theirs. Great discovery isn’t about pitching. It’s about listening, digging, and connecting the dots. Get it right, and you’ll build urgency without ever needing to offer a discount. Which number could you be doing more of? ------------------------------------------------------- 🔔 Follow me for more on sales James Bissell ♻️ Repost and I'll send you a Discovery Call talk track.

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Here is the real impact that value selling is having for revenue teams: Tom Pisello David Yockelson 🔑48% improvement in winrate 🔑35% increase in deal size 🔑25% reduction in sales cycle time BUT...... ⛔️ only 19% of reps and 19% of pipeline is using value selling today. BIGGGG opportunity here...!

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Mobileforce Software is obsessed with helping our #CPQ customers and #SalesOps users boost revenues by improving sales efficiency and accuracy. That's why we greatly appreciated Dini M.'s post about how to drastically improve weekly sales & AE meetings. Here's the TL;DR for #Sales & Account Leaders with their recurring meetings: 1. Focus on sharing best practices & patterns across the group by picking and deep-diving into 2-3 deals per week 2. Discuss candidly what's working, what's not working, and ideas on what to test out next 3. Discuss specific oppies across the funnel (not just late-stage) to identify sales issues 4. Use tech and/or AI to highlight gaps, vulnerabilities or inconsistencies -- e.g., Predixtions Inc. Thanks for sharing these #salesmanagement insights, Dini.

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How have Account Executive commission rates changed over time? Is the 5x "Quota:OTE Ratio" still the benchmark? 👉 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝(𝐬) 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐚:𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝟓𝐱 📊 Effectively this said OTE was 20% of quota 📅 In 2024 the Quota:OTE Ratio has decreased to 4.2x at median - 25th Percentile = 3.2x Quota to OTE Ratio - 75th Percentile = 4.8x Quota to OTE Ratio This translates to OTE being at 23.8% of quota 🤔How did the Quota:OTE Ratio decrease by 16% in an era of "growth efficiency" 👉 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐪𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 ~ 𝟏𝟎% 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 📈 Majority of VC plans had a sliding scale of commission rate payouts that only resulted in the ~ 10% commission rate at 100% achievement 📅 In 2024 the media commission rate at 100% quota achievement is 11.5% 🤔 How did the commission rate increase by 1.5% (11.5% vs 10%) which could also be viewed as a 15% increase ((11.5%/10%) - 100%)) = 15% 👉 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 𝐎𝐓𝐄 (𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧) 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 $𝟏𝟔𝟕𝐊 𝐭𝐨 $𝟏𝟗𝟎𝐊 (𝟏𝟒%) 🤯 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐚'𝐬 (𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧) 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 $𝟕𝟒𝟎𝐊 𝐭𝐨 $𝟖𝟎𝟎𝐊 (𝟖%) 👆 At the same time CAC Payback Periods have increased 10%+ and CAC Ratio has increased 10%+ and percentage of AEs achieving quota has dipped below 50% 💭 Maybe increasing OTE (%) and commission rates (%) more than quota (%) coupled with less people hitting quota has something to do with DECREASED CAC Efficiency??? ⏰🔔 Alarm bells should be going off regarding the need for different approaches to new customer acquisition and re-engineered Sales Compensation plans in pursuit of "more efficient revenue growth 🗣 Talking about the data is easy - doing something about it is HARD!!! 🖊 Ideas for new approaches will be the theme of the SaaS Barometer Newsletter next week 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒: 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 2024 𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝 𝐴𝐸 𝐵𝑒𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 #b2bsaas #benchmarks #quota

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SDRs, stop talking about what you sell on LinkedIn. Start talking about HOW you sell. That's how you build a brand.

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Dear SDRs/BDRs...Make it stop! Getting messages like this in my inbox..... "Hey {First Name} , just popping in to see if you had a chance to take a look at my last message? No worries if not, send me a thumbs up if you'd like me to share more information :) " WHO is paying people to sit and send out messages like this?? This is beyond annoying. LinkedIn Spam is ruining good business outreach and wasting alot of our time. BDRs need to be held to higher standards. Is management out to lunch?! I wish the LinkedIn Messages UX was a bit better. Sales Nav is ok but the separation kills me. Anyone have any hacks/figured out how to make your LinkedIN message Inbox tolerable? I know theres good people in my inbox, but I just cant stomach the monotony of reading through these god awful messages from the WORST SDRs. HELP!!!! MAKE IT STOP #LinkedinHacks #bizdev #SDRtraining

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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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Some great advice here for those in the Biz Dev world! Let's go!!!

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5 books every salesperson should read.. 1. 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐲 𝐉𝐞𝐛 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 Incredible book for SDR’s, AE’s and even Sales Leaders to level up their prospecting game. https://lnkd.in/gUhrtmCt 2. 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐛𝐲 𝐉𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐨 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 Not necessarily a sales book, but something that separates good sellers from great sellers is having an internal locus of control. Extreme ownership is a great book for both sellers and sales leaders. https://lnkd.in/gTDs_ZVj 3. 𝐓𝐨 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐈𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐤 A phenomenal book on finding your authentic voice and approach. https://lnkd.in/d5RWuPS 4. 5-𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐲 𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐱 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐟𝐚𝐲𝐧 Based on consistent, repeated actions that take only minutes per day, but can deliver huge results and more closed won deals. https://lnkd.in/g54JW6CP 5. 𝐆𝐀𝐏 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐲 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐧 GAP selling takes a modern approach to sales. The strategies are impactful and easy to implement with a bit of work! https://lnkd.in/dHFBWk6 Which sales books are top of your list? #b2bsales #sales #salescoaching

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Prospects think salespeople are selfish. Why? Because when salespeople reach out, they always want something. Here’s what wanting something sounds like: “ACME’s reps are hitting quota 2X faster. Open to seeing how we helped their AEs self-source pipeline? How’s Friday for 30 minutes?” Or: “What if you could help your AEs hit quota 2X faster? Built an app that identifies prospects in the market for what you’re selling. Would it be a terrible idea to take a peek?” The way out? Make deposits. A deposit is valuable information that helps your prospect be more successful at their job. (Note: case studies aren’t deposits.) Here are examples for my business: “Lisa, here’s a link to a fun slideshow called ‘What Zelda Can Teach You About Writing Effective Cold Emails.’” “Lisa, I saw you’re scaling your team. Here’s an SDR calculator to help you set the right quota for each SDR based on your desired return.” “Lisa, I analyzed 937 cold calls that booked meetings. Here’s a slideshow on what they have in common.” No call to action. No request for a response. If they’re interested, they’ll find their way to your website. People know how to respond to emails without a prompt. Are you overdrawn? Make deposits.

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How can AEs 3.1x WinRate AND close deals 4.7x faster? Analysis of 4 million opportunities on $54bn of B2B sales pipeline shows preparation pays...   The better you prepare, the more you get to work great deals.  But what is the preparation to 3.1x WinRate?    → Prospect your ICP + Ideal Personas. - It's crucial to know your ideal customer profile.  - It's crucial to know the best personas to target.     →Top Performing AEs Disproportionately prospect both.     - They source less deals but close more self-sourced revenue.   - Most AEs half heartedly prospect "big accounts".  - The most successful AEs whole-heartedly prospect "ICP accounts".       → Preparing the list of ICPs + Personas is hard work.   → That is the best part, most don't do it.     Give yourself a fair advantage.     1. Discover the criteria of ICP & personas. 2. Apply the criteria to your prospects. 3. Target the top 20% of accounts that meet the criteria.   It sounds simple, but most people give up half way through.     So once you find deals.... what then? How do you close opportunities 4.7x faster?    The Answer? → Be Prepared to Hard Qualify.    → Apply the sales methodology you follow.     If you don't have 80%+ of MEDDPICC or SPICED by the end of Discovery... Sounds harsh, but without it at discovery deals slow down and often don't close.   Seriously consider walking away from the opportunity.     → The best AEs close deals at discovery 3.1x more than average AEs.     Hard to do with pipeline at a premium.    → In 2024, AEs don't have time to waste on unqualified opps.     → The big thing is PREPARATION for qualification and discovery calls.    Research the prospect, bring a perspective on the methodology.    e.g. following MEDDPICC?    I'm guessing your trying to solve X, because of the comments your CEO recently made.     What company initiative/OKR does this align with?    What business metric does this help?      Now you’re a step closer to M. (Metrics)      I'm guessing you've tried to solve this problem before?    What else are you considering?    Drilling into this brings you closer to C. (Competition)      When we send across paperwork...what happens?    Starting to understand the P. (Path to Paper)      If doesn't matter if your using MEDDPICC, SPICED or an internal custom sales process.    What matters is your prepared to use it in qualification and discovery.     Know the questions, form a POV on each from research.     If you’re an AE in 2024, then use the data to improve you're attainment.     Hat tip to Guy Rubin and the team at Ebsta for their AMAZING B2B Sales Benchmarks 2024 Report. p.s. want to fast track your AE Skills? I've one spot left for an AE to join my coaching program in July, send me a dm saying "90"🔥

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CROs: Run this outbound play to break into massive accounts 👇 Most CROs don't engage in deals. Or help reps break into ent/strat accounts. I've never been a CRO before—so I can't tell you whether that's good or bad. You have a lot of responsibilities as a CRO. But, I recently met a CRO who lands meetings with the C-Suite in MASSIVE accounts. The biggest companies you can think of in every category. The key principle: Power is more willing to engage with power. Leverage the C-suite title. Here's how it works: ✅ Pick 10 accounts to get started Choose the top 10 accounts that can make the quarter/year if you win them. The best accounts are ones that reps have worked but not been successful in breaking through. We'll assume you're already going after low-hanging fruit accounts where execs have existing relationships. So we won't count those as part of this exercise. ✅ Work in tandem with a great SDR Pick one of the top SDRs to help. Ideally, this is someone with great leadership potential that you want to promote at some point. ✅ Optional: Give the SDR access to your LinkedIn account This one will make you uncomfortable. You also have the option of creating a separate LinkedIn account as well. But give the SDR autonomy to send approved messages. ✅ Execute the outreach The SDR should do basic account research to find existing initiatives where your solution can add value. Then they need to research the individuals in the C-suite to find podcasts interviews, features, etc. if available. Pick 1-2 similar customers to mention in the message. This should be mentioned in the outreach, along with how you can add value. CTA: Ask for 10 minutes. Send via email and LinkedIn message or InMail. Here's what an example message could look like. --- Eric, Solid Q1, and congrats on the success of Nordy Club sales. Looks like membership growth is a key growth lever. I imagine member retention is a big focus. Our team has had tremendous success helping CVS, BestBuy, and Kohl's run world-class membership programs. Opposed to a quick 10-minute chat to learn more? Jason ✅ Run intro call These will likely go longer than 10 minutes. And the CEO will send you over to someone else in the C-suite. Run a solid intro call and make an offer to introduce key team members on your side. ~~~ The email/LI message should have all of the components of a great cold email: research, problem, social proof, and CTA. But the big difference is leveraging a c-suite title to get a meeting in the c-suite. I wish more CROs and execs in companies would leverage this approach. Agree or disagree? #sales #outbound

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