David Thomas

Attention SDRs and Sales Reps🎙️ If you are not getting enough coaching, use Chat GPT to supplement the lack of support - P.S sorry you aren’t getting support 😥 Paste a transcript of your recorded call or role-play you did with a co-worker into ChatGPT (check with legal if you can do this) Ask ChatGPT to: • Analyze your call based on your call framework or script • Identify areas for improvement by asking Chat GPT (or whatever tool you may use) questions • Suggest alternative phrases to communicate value better Prompts you could use: "What did I do well on this call?” - Start off feeling good "What did I not do well?” "How could I have dug into the pain more? Please provide questions I could have asked?” “Can you give me 3 ways I could have handled the objections?” "Suggest alternative ways I could have gone for the close?” “Did I miss anything in the call that could have helped me go for the close?” A.I. will not replace you; the Reps who learn how to use it to help them improve will. If you are a sales or enablement leader and want to learn more about how you could leverage A.I. to help improve your team. Come to the Allego Sales Success Summit, where Sam Richter CSP, CPAE, will discuss how to use AI to help improve your sales team. https://lnkd.in/eKg3w7w2

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With the amount of information available, final pre-call research used to take me hours the night before important meetings. It was a guaranteed way to cut through the noise and stand out against 15 other seller calls an exec had that day. Over-prepare, deliver with confidence, and the results will follow. It worked. Lately, I've been using ChatGPT to inform outreach and quickly make messaging more impactful -- building custom models for each account. This takes time to set up, but it's a no brainer for strategic customers or top prospects to cut down research time while improving relevancy. I'm evolving the strategy, but phase one looked like this: 1. Collect important investor materials → 10K, 10Q, Earnings transcripts, Investor Summit PDFs, Leadership bios, top news articles. 2. Create GPT → Upload docs and ask to familiarize with materials, your role, and mutual goals you're working towards with the customer 3. Draft a series of prompts → Provide clarity around your market, platform, and typical customer value points. Start simple:   • I work in sales for [x company] and we provide [x service]. Customers usually see value in these areas: [driver 1], [driver 2], [driver 3].  • Typically, our customers are most interested in solving [pain point 1], [pain point 2], or [pain point 3].  • Our website can be found at [website]. (helps to include individual product pages where applicable) • Based on the information shared, will plan to ask a series of follow up questions to validate how our solutions can benefit [x company]. Does this sound ok? 4. Save as [Customer Name] GPT Model  → Repeat for each customer and save in personal ChatGPT environment for future promoting. You now have unique GPT models, each with advanced knowledge of your top customers or prospects -- contextualized around your offerings. Let's test it out. Ask a few questions: • Knowing that I work in sales for [your company name], what opportunities should I focus on when talking with [customer/prospect company name]? • Given your knowledge of [your company name], what strategic initiatives could we most likely impact at [customer/prospect company name]? • What are some of the top risk factors challenging [customer/prospect company name] this year? Next time you have an EB or Go-No-Go call and need to understand positive business outcomes leadership could be evaluating them on... boom! Want to make sure your POV is targeted, based on C-Level strategic initiatives... here you go! Care to see if they were featured in any podcast, video, or interview... and what points may be useful... ask GPT! AI + Automation is changing the way we work, and sales is no exception. Sure beats my old method of CTRL + F searches on SeekingAlpha transcripts. 🔍 Give this a try and let me know what you think. Any other GPT tips for sales?

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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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When onboarding a new AE I focus their first 4 weeks entirely on understanding our clients and client success teams. This means shadowing our CS reps, watching onboarding calls, watching activation calls, sitting in on strategy sessions and planning calls, and handling CS calls in week 4. All of this before we ever begin to start talking about sales enablement or taking sales calls. Why? Because too many sales organizations are 100% seller centric. I am passionate, some may say maniacal about ensuring our sales force is the most customer centric team in the industry. This means our AE's need to understand our customers, their status quo, be able to deliver thought provoking insights, the problems we solve, why they work with us, and the results we get them deeply before they can sell that way. Sending someone into the deep end to "learn by experience" is a go to for many. But I will never be swayed that this is the best way. The best way to create "at bats" and build confidence without burning potential opportunities is to ensure your AE's are learning as much about your customers as possible. This coupled with strong sales enablement, process, and clear expectations will set them up for long term success. Sure they may not be making dials and having meetings 2 weeks in. But I can assure you they will be more successful a year from now then the rep in that situation the majority of the time. True sales leadership is about long-term results. I know this is an unpopular opinion but I believe it is one of the biggest advantages you can give your new hires to increase their chances of long-term success. At the end of the day, my responsibilities as a sales leader are to be fanatical about our customers ensuring our clients and potential clients receive a world class experience. Set our sellers up for success to deliver that, and create an environment where people grow, win, and are challenged on the regular. By doing this, revenue targets take care of themselves. If you're onboarding new AE's in Q3, I would challenge you to try this if you're not. Happy EOQ!

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A mock conversation to help position yourself as a performance consultant during your next request for enablement: THE TIP: Go broad before getting specific. Requesters typically start with a specific problem. —— SME: “Reps aren’t asking the right questions during discovery to surface business impact. We need training!” *Pause* *Get broad first* YOU: “Sounds like they’re at risk for not hitting quota.” SME: “Well, some are on track. But many aren’t.” YOU: “Hitting quota typically depends on the amount of deals booked and the average deal size. Are both a problem?” SME: “No, we actually have a consistent deal size. It’s the number of deals they aren’t closing because they aren’t asking the right questions early on!” YOU: “I see. Number of deals booked requires deals to be created and then converted through the sales cycle. Are they struggling with those?” SME: “Creating opportunities isn’t a problem - they’ve actually been able to surpass our meeting metrics. The problem is converting because they aren’t doing proper discovery!!!” YOU: “Meeting metrics?” SME: “Yes. They need 3 prospect meetings a week. We’ve averaged four, so it’s the discovery skills they lack to actually convert into qualified opportunities.” YOU: “Who do they book these meetings with?” SME: “Good question. We do want them to get high in the org, but most are with lower level personas…probably because they’re easier to book a meeting with.” YOU: “You mentioned reps weren’t surfacing business impact. Can lower level personas provide business impact data?” SME: “Hmm…I suppose not.“ YOU: “If they had the right personas on the call, could they uncover the right business impact data?” SME: “Well…I suppose they could. The information we want them to gather is well documented, along with sample questions to ask.” YOU: “Do they know who the right personas are and are they properly prioritizing them?” SME: “I’m not sure. We do prioritization at the account level during territory planning, not at the contact level.” YOU: “Do you think that might help?” SME: “I do. An easy lift as well.” YOU: “And those meeting KPIs - any chance we can include persona-level requirements?” SME: “Great idea. The amount might drop, but the quality could be improved.” YOU: “Another easy lift. Should we give it a try and measure how it impacts conversion rates before adding any formal training?” SME: “Good idea. The reps have been asking for less training lately anyways.” —- You’re looking for leverage; you can only find it if you dig. #sales #salesenablement

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Love these tips from Daphne to stop CSM’s being reactive and start being proactive

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There’s something special about not just getting our Sales Dev team together but the whole GTM org in person once a quarter at Lattice. A pipeline opportunity created or a closed won hits different when you actually get to smash the gong (pun intended 😉) So why am I even more stoked on the future at Lattice after this week? ✨Sarah Franklin shared her vision for our product and how to bring it to market. When I see features that I KNOW will make my life easier as a people leader, I can only imagine how amp’d our buyers will be! ✨PMM laid out some stunning new positioning and I am giddy about writing new talk tracks for our calls (thank you Ross Gordon and others for the fuel!!) ✨We got a preview of our quarterly product release that’s dropping next week. 20+ new features!! It’s so much fun to sell for a company that is innovating. Thank you Kerry Wheeler and Amaury Sablon for kicking off the fun. ✨Gabrielle “GB” Blackwell ran her first BDR training for our team. The best advice I’ve gotten is hire leaders that are better than you #ironsharpensiron. Her outbound sales skills are out of this 🌎 and I can’t wait to see where she will take the entire sales team with her insights #gtmstrategy #salesdevelopment #hrtech

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Ready to be a Mixmax pro?!?! Join us today at 11am PDT! Whether you're an SDR, AE, or CSM... We're covering all the best practices to how you can be most successful with Mixmax! Not using Mixmax yet, but curious... This masterclass is also for you 👈

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The results are in! Gong has been named a leader in the new report, The Forrester Wave™: Revenue Orchestration Platforms, Q3 2024. In this report, Forrester analyzed and scored 12 top vendors in the market. Gong received the highest scores possible for more criteria than any other vendor, including:   ⭐ Innovation ⭐ AI and automation differentiators ⭐ Range of analytics insights ⭐ Platform UX and integration “Gong’s AI reveals unique buyer and seller insights to improve deal outcomes. One of the few companies founded with AI at its core, Gong has used its nine-year AI résumé to create transformative insights for revenue organization." Check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/dzmzU62Y

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SDRs don't work for AEs.... In fact, AEs should work for SDRs. If you're in a position to have an SDR helping you crack meetings you need to point them in the right direction with the right messaging and use cases. SDRs aren't your assistants. They're the tip of the spear. Cole Praver 🙌 #sales

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The best salespeople know that selling isn’t about pushing products—it’s about understanding and solving the buyer’s complete problem.  This approach builds lasting relationships and exceeds quotas.  To do this effectively, you must understand the outcomes your buyer wants, both professionally and personally. That’s where great discovery questions come in. We asked top sellers in our "How I Sell" series to share their favorite discovery questions. Here are some highlights: 1️⃣ How important is this problem to solve? How important is this problem to solve right now? Jen Allen-Knuth, Founder at DemandJen, uses this two-part question to help gauge the urgency and relevance of the problem, compared to other priorities they might have. 2️⃣ How will the proposed change impact you personally? This question is a favorite of Lisa Earle McLeod, Founder of McLeod & More, Inc. It helps reveal personal stakes in the buying process, address any hesitations, and build a genuine connection with buyers. 3️⃣ Can you walk me through the last time you made an investment in your business? Kimberly Dieter, SVP of Sales at HubSpot, loves to ask this question because it uncovers decision-making processes and criteria, which allows you to tailor your sales approach. These questions, coupled with active listening, are key to understanding the buyer’s psychology and motivations. The best sellers don’t just address business needs—they delve into personal motivations to truly connect and provide value. Mastering this skill can significantly boost your sales success. Check out 7 more favorite discovery questions used by top performers here: https://lnkd.in/euseq5Q6 #sales #salesstrategy #discoverycalls #b2bsales #salestips

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Can you say "it" without actually saying "it"? In a different world, long ago...it was okay and expected that a BDR/SDR would pitch for a meeting right away. No probing for pain, offering a value prop, or engaging in a conversation first. She/he would ask for an appointment. Today that does not work. Today's business professionals in those roles have to be educated, well versed in the industry their calling, and present themselves as "experts", to have any credibility. In other words, it takes talent and real work to be successful. I like it and prefer it! Outreach to prospects with a solution you know will make their life easier, and the knowledge to present a solution is far more powerful. Support your folks in these roles, provide... ▫ Updated data ▫ Access to company information ▫ Battle cards on the competition ▫ Tech stack that has value ▫ Personal support/coaching ▫ Spiffs for performance ▫ Reasonable commission plan What am I missing? Let me know in the comments. #BDR #SDR #Outbound

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SDRs and AEs are sending way too many emails these days. All you need is 4. 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Jill, looks like your team’s growing quickly. How’re you planning SKO for all your new AEs? We help sales leaders pick everything from destination, flights, meals and events. Simply put in your team size and budget and we’ll give you all your options in seconds. Curious to learn how? 𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Here's a quick video showing how you can plan SKO (flights, meals and events) in less than a minute: [insert video] ♻️ And then repeat that (a week later) with a new pain point That's it. 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆: Don't send break up emails. Those get marked as SPAM. What cold email tips do you have? - Mike G 👉 Join 7,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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Here's a multi-threading opportunity most sellers miss post-demo: 𝗔𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀: Send a recap/thank you email to the entire group 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀: Send a recap/thank you email to the entire group Send a 1-off email to each attendee with a question: "Did we miss anything you were hoping we'd cover?" 𝗘𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀: Send a recap/thank you email to the entire group Watch the recording - See who was confused or excited. Tailor a 1-off email to each with that in mind. Confused: [𝘕𝘢𝘮𝘦] - 𝘐 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 [𝘹]. 𝘐 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘈𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘶𝘱? Excited: [𝘕𝘢𝘮𝘦] - 𝘗𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 [𝘹 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦]. 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦-𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭. Champions are great. A team of champions is better.

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He rescheduled another meeting. There have been a few sales enablement leaders, regional sales leaders and even VPs of Sales we've been speaking with for a couple of months and not getting anywhere our meetings would continue to get pushed or rescheduled after a very good first meeting. Then before killing the opp - I'd get a hold of the CRO directly - schedule a quick 1:1 call for 30 minutes... And almost every single one of them would wish we were talking months ago. Many couldn't be more enthusiastic about continuing conversations and the next thing you know - we're in legal and the deal is done weeks later. So when your buyer admits this is a problem, but doesn't want to continue conversations right now without a solid explanation on why it's not a priority and you feel otherwise based on: 1) the info gathered during discovery 2) how well you're helping other companies with the same exact problems Don't qualify the opp out yet. The opportunity with that person may be dead, but the opportunity with that company may still be very well alive. #toponepercenter #academy #sales

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What's a fair salary for a CSM? Last week Noah Little blew the CS corner of the internet with a hot take that CSMs should be paid like sales reps. Needless to say, when it comes to money, the more the merrier. 🤑 But should CSMs and Sales Reps be paid in the same "structure"? Probably not... Different roles and different tasks, therefore different comp structures. So instead of comparing ourselves to sales, we need to be able to: 1- compare ourselves to the rest of the industry 2- align the comp of the CSM to the revenue it generates That's how we fight for more of the pie. The issue is that if you are in Europe, it's really hard to get good salary data to even start this process. That's why I partnered with some of the top CS brands in Europe to collate a survey that helps us understand our local salary landscape. The report will help: - Leaders design fair and equitable compensation packages - CS Professionals benchmark their offers and salaries Link to answer the survey is in the comments section! #csm #customersuccess #salary #compensation #growthmindset

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Sales leaders, next time you’re struggling to get reps to update fields in your CRM, ask yourself this question… Is it clear to sellers that following the sales process will improve their performance? The typical approach: ↳Remind sellers why they receive a base salary. ↳Share examples in slack to highlight what “good” looks like. ↳Restrict sellers from advancing deals without proper CRM hygiene. These are all solid, but they fail to address the root problem... Seller requirements are not aligned to business requirements. Business requirements: Forecast business health Innovate new products Grow market share Seller requirements: Achieve quota Improve Win Rate Maintain Healthy Pipeline So how can we bridge the gap? Here's 3 ways to demonstrate the value of your sales. performance: 1/ Integrate your CRM with your CMS/LMS. That way, the more fields sellers complete in Salesforce, the better content recommendations they get to assist with their deals. Tools like GTM Buddy make this super easy. 2/ Show reps how to filter past deals to identify buyer patterns. Are you prepping for a Mid-market deal in the healthcare industry with 4 or more stakeholders? Great, we’ve had 7 deals like that over the past year. Show them how to look for similar deals other reps have closed and identify patterns. (You can actually do this in Gong Insights. Learning how to do this was a game changer for me) The added bonus is they can reach out and speak to the reps that worked those deals to find out some of the nuances that may not show up in the opportunity notes. 3/ Call out unnecessary processes. Not every new process will improve seller performance. That’s okay. But, if you’re willing to call that out to sellers and either A) remove it, or B) negotiate with your team, then you’ll earn the trust and respect of your reps. Here’s what good negotiating looks like coming from a VP of Sales: “Look, I know it’s a pain to have to wait a day for RevOps approval just to be able to close a deal you’ve already gotten signed. But, the fact is, if I don’t have a better view of what’s happening with our deals, I look unprepared when I meet with the board. If there are no revisions on at least 80% of the deals submitted for approval next quarter, we can get rid of the approval process all together. I'll work with RevOps to build a report and share it with the team so we can all keep track.” Your sales reps are more than employees, they’re your business partners—show them the value of change, just like you do with your buyers.

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5 new AI capabilities for Gong!

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Looking to increase your renewal rates before year-end? 📈 Account Manager Ari Manin reveals how ZoomInfo Copilot empowers him to walk into every renewal call fully prepared. With access to critical insights about his accounts, like customer use cases, recent interactions, and pain points, Ari can address each client’s needs head-on — without hours of prep. Ready to see Copilot in action? Request a demo: bit.ly/3ApQeCG

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